University  of  Cali 

Southern  Regio 

Library  Facili 


OCSB  UBRART 


THE    LIFE 


JOHN    STERLING. 


THOMAS   CARLYLE. 


NEW   YORK: 
SCRIBNER,  WELFORD,   AND  COMPANY. 

1871. 


LONDON  I 
ROBSON  AND  SONS,  PRINTERS,  PANCRAS  ROAD,  N.W. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 

CHAT.  PAGE 

I.   INTRODUCTORY  .......  i 

II.  BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE       .....  7 

III.  SCHOOLS:  LLANBLETHIAN  ;  PARIS;  LONDON         .  12 

IV.  UNIVERSITIES  :  GLASGOW  ;  CAMBRIDGE        .         .  26 
V.  A  PROFESSION  .......  33 

VI.  LITERATURE  -.  THE  ATHENAEUM  .         .         .         .38 

VII.  REGENT  STREET         .         .         .         .         .         .40 

VIII.  COLERIDGE        .......     46 

IX.  SPANISH  EXILES         ......     54 

X.  TORRIJOS  ........     57 

XI.  MARRIAGE  :  ILL-HEALTH  ;  WEST-INDIES      .         .     64 

XII.  ISLAND  OF  ST.  VINCENT      .         .         .         .         -67 

XIII.  A  CATASTROPHE         ......     75 

XIV.  PAUSE 78 

XV.  BONN;  HERSTMONCEUX      .         .         .         .         .81 

PART  II. 

I.  CURATE     ........     87 

II.  NOT  CURATE     .         .  '       .         .         .         .         .90 

III.  BAYSWATER       .          .          .          .          .          .          .104 

IV.  To  BORDEAUX 114 

V.  To  MADEIRA     .          .          .          .          .          .          .126 

VI.  LITERATURE:  THE  STERLING  CLUB     .         .         .136 
VII.  ITALY        ........   141 


iv  CONTENTS. 

PART  III. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  CLIFTON    .         .         .  .         .         .         .         .161 

II.  Two  WINTERS  .         .  .         .         .         .         .174 

III.  FALMOUTH  :  POEMS   .  .         .         .         .         .183 

IV.  NAPLES:  POEMS         .  .         .         .         .    •     .   197 
V.  DISASTER  ON  DISASTER  .....  206 

VI.  VENTNOR  :  DEATH     .         .         .         .         .         .218 

VII.  CONCLUSION       .......   230 


SUMMARY   .........   237 

INDEX         .         .         .         .         .         .         ...         .   245 


LIFE  OF  JOHN  STERLING. 


PAET  FIEST. 

CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

NEAR  seven  years  ago,  a  short  while  before  his  death  in  1844, 
John  Sterling  committed  the  care  of  his  literary  Character  and 
printed  Writings  to  two  friends,  Archdeacon  Hare  and  myself. 
His  estimate  of  the  bequest  was  far  from  overweening  ;  to  few 
men  could  the  small  sum-total  of  his  activities  in  this  world 
seem  more  inconsiderable  than,  in  those  last  solemn  days,  it 
did  to  him.  He  had  burnt  much  ;  found  much  unworthy  ; 
looking  steadfastly  into  the  silent  continents  of  Death  and 
Eternity,  a  brave  man's  judgments  about  his  own  sorry  work 
in  the  field  of  Time  are  not  apt  to  be  too  lenient.  But,  in 
fine,  here  was  some  portion  of  his  work  which  the  world  had 
already  got  hold  of,  and  which  he  could  not  burn.  This  too, 
since  it  was  not  to  be  abolished  and  annihilated,  but  must  still 
for  some  time  live  and  act,  he  wished  to  be  wisely  settled,  as 
the  rest  had  been.  And  so  it  was  left  in  charge  to  us,  the 
survivors,  to  do  for  it  what  we  judged  fittest,  if  indeed  doing 
nothing  did  not  seem  the  fittest  to  us.  This  message,  com- 
municated after  his  decease,  was  naturally  a  sacred  one  to 
Mr.  Hare  and  me. 

After  some  consultation  on  it,  and  survey  of  the  difficulties 

B 


2  JOHN  STERLING. 

and  delicate  considerations  involved  in  it,  Archdeacon  Hare 
and  I  agreed  that  the  whole  task,  of  selecting  what  Writings 
were  to  be  reprinted,  and  of  drawing-up  a  Biography  to  intro- 
duce them,  should  be  left  to  him  alone ;  and  done  without 
interference  of  mine  : — as  accordingly  it  was,1  in  a  manner 
surely  far  superior  to  the  common,  in  every  good  quality  of 
editing  ;  and  visibly  everywhere  bearing  testimony  to  the 
friendliness,  the  piety,  perspicacity  and  other  gifts  and  virtues 
of  that  eminent  and  amiable  man. 

In  one  respect,  however,  if  in  one  only,  the  arrangement 
had  been  unfortunate.  Archdeacon  Hare,  both  by  natural 
tendency  and  by  his  position  as  a  Churchman,  had  been  led, 
in  editing  a  Work  not  free  from  ecclesiastical  heresies,  and 
especially  in  writing  a  Life  very  full  of  such,  to  dwell  with  pre- 
ponderating emphasis  on  that  part  of  his  subject ;  by  no  means 
extenuating  the  fact,  nor  yet  passing  lightly  over  it  (which  a 
layman  could  have  done)  as  needing  no  extenuation  ;  but  care- 
fully searching  into  it,  with  the  view  of  excusing  and  explaining 
it ;  dwelling  on  it,  presenting  all  the  documents  of  it,  and  as 
it  were  spreading  it  over  the  whole  field  of  his  delineation  ,  as 
if  religious  heterodoxy  had  been  the  grand  fact  of  Sterling's 
life,  which  even  to  the  Archdeacon's  mind  it  could  by  no  means 
seem  to  be.  Hinc  illce  lachrymce.  For  the  Religious  News- 
papers, and  Periodical  Heresy-hunters,  getting  very  lively  in 
those  years,  were  prompt  to  seize  the  cue  ;  and  have  prosecuted 
and  perhaps  still  prosecute  it,  in  their  sad  way,  to  all  lengths 
and  breadths.  John  Sterling's  character  and  writings,  which 
had  little  business  to  be  spoken  of  in  any  Church-court,  have 
hereby  been  carried  thither  as  if  for  an  exclusive  trial ;  and 
the  mournfulest  set  of  pleadings,  out  of  which  nothing  but  a 
misjudgment  can  be  formed,  prevail  there  ever  since.  The 
noble  Sterling,  a  radiant  child  of  the  empyrean,  clad  in  bright 
auroral  hues  in  the  memory  of  all  that  knew  him, — what  is  he 
doing  here  in  inquisitorial  sanbenito,  with  nothing  but  ghastly 
spectralities  prowling  round  him,  and  inarticulately  screeching 
and  gibbering  what  they  call  their  judgment  on  him  ! 

•The  sin  of  Hare's  Book,"  says  one  of  my  Correspondents 
in  those  years,  '  is  easily  defined,  and  not  very  condemnable, 

1  John  Sterling's  Essays  and  Tales,  with  Life  by  Archdeacon  Hare. 
Parker;  London,  1848. 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

•  but  it  is  nevertheless  ruinous  to  his  task  as  Biographer.  He 
'  takes  up  Sterling  as  a  clergyman  merely.  Sterling,  I  find, 
1  was  a  curate  for  exactly  eight  months  ;  during  eight  months 
'  and  no  more  had  he  any  special  relation  to  the  Church.  But 
'  he  was  a  man,  and  had  relation  to  the  Universe,  for  eight- 
'  and-thirty  years  :  and  it  is  in  this  latter  character,  to  which 
'  all  the  others  were  but  features  and  transitory  hues,  that  we 
'  wish  to  know  him.  His  battle  with  hereditary  Church-for- 
'  mulas  was  severe  ;  but  it  was  by  no  means  his  one  battle 
'  with  things  inherited,  nor  indeed  his  chief  battle  ;  neither, 
'  according  to  my  observation  of  what  it  was,  is  it  successfully 
'  delineated  or  summed-up  in  this  Book.  The  truth  is,  nobody 
'  that  had  known  Sterling  would  recognise  a  feature  of  him 
'  here  ;  you  would  never  dream  that  this  Book  treated  of  him 
'  at  all.  A  pale  sickly  shadow  in  torn  surplice  is  presented  to 
'  us  here  ;  weltering  bewildered  amid  heaps  of  what  you  call 
'  "  Hebrew  Old-clothes  ;"  wrestling,  with  impotent  impetuosity, 
'  to  free  itself  from  the  baleful  imbroglio,  as  if  that  had  been 
'  its  one  function  in  life  :  who  in  this  miserable  figure  would 
'  recognise  the  brilliant,  beautiful  and  cheerful  John  Sterling, 
'  with  his  ever-flowing  wealth  of  ideas,  fancies,  imaginations  ; 
'  with  his  frank  affections,  inexhaustible  hopes,  audacities,  ac- 
'  tivities,  and  general  radiant  vivacity  of  heart  and  intelligence, 
'  which  made  the  presence  of  him  an  illumination  and  inspira- 
'  tion  wherever  he  went  ?  It  is  too  bad.  Let  a  man  be  honestly 
'  forgotten  when  his  life  ends  ;  but  let  him  not  be  misremem- 
'  bered  in  this  way.  To  be  hung-up  as  an  ecclesiastical  scare- 
'  crow,  as  a  target  for  heterodox  and  orthodox  to  practise 
'  archery  upon,  is  no  fate  that  can  be  due  to  the  memory  of 
'  Sterling.  It  was  not  as  a  ghastly  phantasm,  choked  in  Thirty- 
'  nine-article  controversies,  or  miserable  Semitic,  Anti-Semitic 
'  street-riots, — in  scepticisms,  agonised  self-seekings,  that  this 
1  man  appeared  in  life  ;  nor  as  such,  if  the  world  still  wishes 
'  to  look  at  him,  should  you  suffer  the  world's  memory  of"him 
'  now  to  be.  Once  for  all,  it  is  unjust;  emphatically  untrue  as 
'  an  image  of  John  Sterling  :  perhaps  to  few  men  that  lived 
'  along  with  him  could  such  an  interpretation  of  their  existence 
'  be  more  inapplicable.' 

Whatever  truth  there  might  be  in  these  rather  passionate 


4  JOHN  STERLING. 

representations,  and  to  myself  there  wanted  not  a  painful  feel- 
ing of  their  truth,  it  by  no  means  appeared  what  helper  remedy 
any  friend  of  Sterling's,  and  especially  one  so  related  to  the 
matter  as  myself,  could  attempt  in  the  interim.  Perhaps  en- 
dure in  patience  till  the  dust  laid  itself  again,  as  all  dust  does 
if  you  leave  it  well  alone  ?  Much  obscuration  would  thus  of 
its  own  accord  fall  away;  and,  in  Mr.  Hare's  narrative  itself, 
apart  from  his  commentary,  many  features  of  Sterling's  true 
character  would  become  decipherable  to  such  as  sought  them. 
Censure,  blame  of  this  Work  of  Mr.  Hare's  was  naturally  far 
from  my  thoughts.  A  work  which  distinguishes  itself  by  human 
piety  and  candid  intelligence  ;  which,  in  all  details,  is  careful, 
lucid,  exact ;  and  which  offers,  as  we  say,  to  the  observant 
reader  that  will  interpret  facts,  many  traits  of  Sterling  besides 
his  heterodoxy.  Censure  of  it,  from  me  especially,  is  not  the 
thing  due  ;  from  me  a  far  other  thing  is  due  ! — 

On  the  whole,  my  private  thought  was  :  First,  How  happy 
it  comparatively  is,  for  a  man  of  any  earnestness  of  life,  to  have 
no  Biography  written  of  him  ;  but  to  return  silently,  with  his 
small,  sorely  foiled  bit  of  work,  to  the  Supreme  Silences,  who 
alone  can  judge  of  it  or  him  ;  and  not  to  trouble  the  reviewers, 
and  greater  or  lesser  public,  with  attempting  to  judge  it!  The 
idea  of  '  fame,'  as  they  call  it,  posthumous  or  other,  does  not 
inspire  one  with  much  ecstasy  in  these  points  of  view. — Se- 
condly, That  Sterling's  performance  and  real  or  seeming  im- 
portance in  this  world  was  actually  not  of  a  kind  to  demand 
an  express  Biography,  even  according  to  the  world's  usages. 
His  character  was  not  supremely  original ;  neither  was  his  fate 
in  the  world  wonderful.  What  he  did  was  inconsiderable 
enough  ;  and  as  to  what  it  lay  in  him  to  have  done,  this  was 
but  a  problem,  now  beyond  possibility  of  settlement.  Why  had 
a  Biography  been  inflicted  on  this  man  ;  why  had  not  No- 
biography,  and  the  privilege  of  all  the  weary,  been  his  lot  ? — 
Thirdly,  That  such  lot,  however,  could  now  no  longer  be  my 
good  Sterling's ;  a  tumult  having  risen  around  his  name,  enough 
to  impress  some  pretended  likeness  of  him  (about  as  like  as 
the  Guy-Fauxes  are,  on  Gunpowder-Day)  upon  the  minds  of 
many  men  :  so  that  he  could  not  be  forgotten,  and  could  only 
be  misremembered,  as  matters  now  stood. 

Whereupon,  as  practical  conclusion  to  the  whole,  arose  by 


INTRODUCTORY.  5 

degrees  this  final  thought,  That,  at  some  calmer  season,  when 
the  theological  dust  had  well  fallen,  and  both  the  matter  itself, 
and  my  feelings  on  it,  were  in  a  suitabler  condition,  I  ought 
to  give  my  testimony  about  this  friend  whom  I  had  known  so 
well,  and  record  clearly  what  my  knowledge  of  him  was.  This 
has  ever  since  seemed  a  kind  of  duty  I  had  to  do  in  the  world 
before  leaving  it. 

And  so,  having  on  my  hands  some  leisure  at  this  time,  and 
being  bound  to  it  by  evident  considerations,  one  of  which  ought 
to  be  especially  sacred  to  me,  I  decide  to  fling  down  on  paper 
some  outline  of  what  my  recollections  and  reflections  contain  in 
reference  to  this  most  friendly,  bright  and  beautiful  human  soul ; 
who  walked  with  me  for  a  season  in  this  world,  and  remains  to 
me  very  memorable  while  I  continue  in  it.  Gradually,  if  facts 
simple  enough  in  themselves  can  be  narrated  as  they  came  to 
pass,  it  will  be  seen  what  kind  of  man  this  was  ;  to  what  ex- 
tent condemnable  for  imaginary  heresy  and  other  crimes,  to 
what  extent  laudable  and  lovable  for  noble  manful  orthodoxy 
and  other  virtues ; — and  whether  the  lesson  his  life  had  to  teach 
us  is  not  much  the  reverse  of  what  the  Religious  Newspapers 
hitherto  educe  from  it. 

Certainly  it  was  not  as  a  '  sceptic'  that  you  could  define 
him,  whatever  his  definition  might  be.  Belief,  not  doubt,  at- 
tended him  at  all  points  of  his  progress  ;  rather  a  tendency  to 
too  hasty  and  headlong  belief.  Of  all  men  he  was  the  least 
prone  to  what  you  could  call  scepticism  :  diseased  self-listen- 
ings, self-questionings,  impotently  painful  dubitations,  all  this 
fatal  nosology  of  spiritual  maladies,  so  rife  in  our  day,  was  emi- 
nently foreign  to  him.  Quite  on  the  other  side  lay  Sterling's 
faults,  such  as  they  were.  In  fact,  you  could  observe,  in  spite 
of  his  sleepless  intellectual  vivacity,  he  was  not  properly  a 
thinker  at  all ;  his  faculties  were  of  the  active,  not  of  the  pas- 
sive or  contemplative  sort.  A  brilliant  improvisators;  rapid 
in  thought,  in  word  and  in  act ;  everywhere  the  promptest  and 
least  hesitating  of  men.  I  likened  him  often,  in  my  banterings, 
to  sheet-lightning ;  and  reproachfully  prayed  that  he  would  con- 
centrate himself  into  a  bolt,  and  rive  the  mountain-barriers  for 
us,  instead  of  merely  playing  on  them  and  irradiating  them. 

True,  he  had  his  '  religion'  to  seek,  and  painfully  shape  to- 


6  JOHN  STERLING. 

gather  for  himself,  out  of  the  abysses  of  conflicting  disbelief  and 
sham-belief  and  bedlam  delusion,  now  filling  the  world,  as  all 
men  of  reflection  have  ;  and  in  this  respect  too, — more  especi- 
ally as  his  lot  in  the  battle  appointed  for  us  all  was,  if  you  can 
understand  it,  victory  and  not  defeat, — he  is  an  expressive  em- 
blem of  his  time,  and  an  instruction  and  possession  to  his  con- 
temporaries. For,  I  say,  it  is  by  no  means  as  a  vanquished 
doubter  that  he  figures  in  the  memory  of  those  who  knew  him ; 
but  rather  as  a  victorious  believer,  and  under  great  difficulties 
a  victorious  doer.  An  example  to  us  all,  not  of  lamed  misery, 
helpless  spiritual  bewilderment  and  sprawling  despair,  or  any 
kind  of  drownage  in  the  foul  welter  of  our  so-called  religious 
or  other  controversies  and  confusions  ;  but  of  a  swift  and 
valiant  vanquisher  of  all  these  ;  a  noble  asserter  of  himself,  as 
worker  and  speaker,  in  spite  of  all  these.  Continually,  so  far 
as  he  went,  he  was  a  teacher,  by  act  and  word,  of  hope,  clear- 
ness, activity,  veracity,  and  human  courage  and  nobleness :  the 
preacher  of  a  good  gospel  to  all  men,  not  of  a  bad  to  any  man. 
The  man,  whether  in  priest's  cassock  or  other  costume  of  men, 
who  is  the  enemy  or  hater  of  John  Sterling,  may  assure  him- 
self that  he  does  not  yet  know  him, — that  miserable  differences 
of  mere  costume  and  dialect  still  divide  him,  whatsoever  is 
worthy,  catholic  and  perennial  in  him,  from  a  brother  soul  who, 
more  than  most  in  his  day,  was  his  brother  and  not  his  adver- 
sary in  regard  to  all  that. 

Nor  shall  the  irremediable  drawback  that  Sterling  was  not 
current  in  the  Newspapers,  that  he  achieved  neither  what  the 
world  calls  greatness  nor  what  intrinsically  is  such,  altogether 
discourage  me.  What  his  natural  size,  and  natural  and  acci- 
dental limits  were,  will  gradually  appear,  if  my  sketching  be 
successful.  And  I  have  remarked  that  a  true  delineation  of 
the  smallest  man,  and  his  scene  of  pilgrimage  through  life,  is 
capable  of  interesting  the  greatest  man ;  that  all  men  are  to  an 
unspeakable  degree  brothers,  each  man's  life  a  strange  emblem 
of  every  man's  ;  and  that  Human  Portraits,  faithfully  drawn, 
are  of  all  pictures  the  welcomest  on  human  walls.  Monitions 
and  moralities  enough  may  lie  in  this  small  Work,  if  honestly 
written  and  honestly  read ; — and,  in  particular,  if  any  image  of 
John  Sterling  and  his  Pilgrimage  through  our  poor  Nineteenth 
Century  be  one  day  wanted  by  the  world,  and  they  can  find 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE.  7 

some  shadow  of  a  true  image  here,  my  swift  scribbling  (which 
shall  be  very  swift  and  immediate)  may  prove  useful  by  and  by. 


CHAPTER  II. 

BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE. 

JOHN  STERLING  was  born  at  Kaimes  Castle,  a  kind  of  dila- 
pidated baronial  residence  to  which  a  small  farm  was  then  at- 
tached, rented  by  his  Father,  in  the  Isle  of  Bute, — on  the  2oth 
July  1 806.  Both  his  parents  were  Irish  by  birth,  Scotch  by 
extraction  ;  and  became,  as  he  himself  did,  essentially  English 
by  long  residence  and  habit.  Of  John  himself  Scotland  has 
little  or  nothing  to  claim  except  the  birth  and  genealogy,  for  he 
left  it  almost  before  the  years  of  memory ;  and  in  his  mature 
days  regarded  it,  if  with  a  little  more  recognition  and  intelli- 
gence, yet  without  more  participation  in  any  of  its  accents  out- 
ward or  inward,  than  others  natives  of  Middlesex  or  Surrey, 
where  the  scene  of  his  chief  education  lay. 

The  climate  of  Bute  is  rainy,  soft  of  temperature  ;  with  skies 
of  unusual  depth  and  brilliancy,  while  the  weather  is  fair.  In 
that  soft  rainy  climate,  on  that  wild-wooded  rocky  coast,  with 
its  gnarled  mountains  and  green  silent  valleys,  with  its  seething 
rain-storms  and  many-sounding  seas,  was  young  Sterling  ush- 
ered into  his  first  schooling  in  this  world.  I  remember  one 
little  anecdote  his  Father  told  me  of  those  first  years  :  One  of 
the  cows  had  calved ;  young  John,  still  in  petticoats,  was  per- 
mitted to  go,  holding  by  his  father's  hand,  and  look  at  the 
newly-arrived  calf ;  a  mystery  which  he  surveyed  with  open  in- 
tent eyes,  and  the  silent  exercise  of  all  the  scientific  faculties  he 
had  ; — very  strange  mystery  indeed,  this  new  arrival,  and  fresh 
denizen  of  our  Universe  :  "Wull't  eat  a-body?"  said  John  in 
his  first  practical  Scotch,  inquiring  into  the  tendencies  this 
mystery  might  have  to  fall  upon  a  little  fellow  and  consume 
him  as  provision  :  "  Will  it  eat  one,  Father  ?" — Poor  little  open- 
eyed  John  :  the  family  long  bantered  him  with  this  anecdote  ; 
and  we,  in  far  other  years,  laughed  heartily  on  hearing  it. — 
Simple  peasant  labourers,  ploughers,  house-servants,  occasional 
fisher-people  too  ;  and  the  sight  of  ships,  and  crops,  and  Na- 
ture's doings  where  Art  has  little  meddled  with  her  :  this  was 


8  JOHN  STERLING. 

the  kind  of  schooling  our  young  friend  had,  first  of  all ;  on  this 
bench  of  the  grand  world-school  did  he  sit,  for  the  first  four 
years  of  his  life. 

Edward  Sterling  his  Father,  a  man  who  subsequently  came 
to  considerable  notice  in  the  world,  was  originally  of  Waterford 
in  Munster ;  son  of  the  Episcopalian  Clergyman  there  ;  and 
chief  representative  of  a  family  of  some  standing  in  those  parts. 
Family  founded,  it  appears,  by  a  Colonel  Robert  Sterling,  called 
also  Sir  Robert  Sterling  ;  a  Scottish  Gustavus-Adolphus  soldier, 
whom  the  breaking-out  of  the  Civil  War  had  recalled  from  his 
German  campaignings,  and  had  before  long,  though  not  till 
after  some. waverings  on  his  part,  attached  firmly  to  the  Duke 
ofOrmond  and  to  the  King's  Party  in  that  quarrel.  A  little  bit 
of  genealogy,  since  it  lies  ready  to  my  hand,  gathered  long  ago 
out  of  wider  studies,  and  pleasantly  connects  things  individual 
and  present  with  the  dim  universal  crowd  of  things  past, — may 
as  well  be  inserted  here  as  thrown  away. 

This  Colonel  Robert  designates  himself  Sterling  'ofGlorat;' 
I  believe,  a  younger  branch  of  the  well-known  Stirlings  of  Keir 
in  Stirlingshire.  It  appears  he  prospered  in  his  soldiering  and 
other  business,  in  those  bad  Ormond  times  ;  being  a  man  of 
energy,  ardour  and  intelligence, — probably  prompt  enough  both 
with  his  word  and  with  his  stroke.  There  survives  yet,  in  the 
Commons  Journals,1  dim  notice  of  his  controversies  and  adven- 
tures ;  especially  of  one  controversy  he  had  got  into  with  certain 
victorious  Parliamentary  official  parties,  while  his  own  party  lay 
vanquished,  during  what  was  called  the  Ormond  Cessation,  or 
Temporary  Peace  made  by  Ormond  with  the  Parliament  in 
1646: — in  which  controversy  Colonel  Robert,  after  repeated 
applications,  journeyings  to  London,  attendances  upon  commit- 
tees, and  suchlike,  finds  himself  worsted,  declared  to  be  in  the 
wrong  ;  and  so  vanishes  from  the  Commons  Journals. 

What  became  of  him  when  Cromwell  got  to  Ireland,  and  to 
Munster,  I  have  not  heard  :  his  knighthood,  dating  from  the 
very  year  of  Cromwell's  Invasion  (1649),  indicates  a  man  ex- 
pected to  do  his  best  on  the  occasion  : — as  in  all  probability  he 
did ;  had  not  Tredah  Storm  proved  ruinous,  and  the  neck  of 
this  Irish  War  been  broken  at  once.  Doubtless  the  Colonel  Sir 

1  Commons  Journals,  iv.  15  (loth  January  1644-5)  I  and  again,  v.  307 
&c.,  498  (i8th  September  1647 — I5th  March  1647-8). 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE.  9 

Robert  followed  or  attended  his  Duke  of  Ormond  into  foreign 
parts,  and  gave-up  his  management  of  Munster,  while  it  was 
yet  time  :  for  after  the  Restoration  we  find  him  again,  safe,  and 
as  was  natural,  flourishing  with  new  splendour ;  gifted,  recom- 
pensed with  lands  ; — settled,  in  short,  on  fair  revenues  in  those 
Munster  regions.  He  appears  to  have  had  no  children  ;  but  to 
have  left  his  property  to  William,  a  younger  brother  who  had 
followed  him  into  Ireland.  From  this  William  descends  the 
family  which,  in  the  years  we  treat  of,  had  Edward  Sterling, 
Father  of  our  John,  for  its  representative.  And  now  enough  of 
genealogy. 

Of  Edward  Sterling,  Captain  Edward  Sterling  as  his  title 
was,  who  in  the  latter  period  of  his  life  became  well  known  in 
London  political  society,  whom  indeed  all  England,  with  a 
curious  mixture  of  mockery  and  respect  and  even  fear,  knew 
well  as  "the  Thunderer  of  the  Times  Newspaper,"  there  were 
much  to  be  said,  did  the  present  task  and  its  limits  permit.  As 
perhaps  it  might,  on  certain  terms  ?  What  is  indispensable  let 
us  not  omit  to  say.  The  history  of  a  man's  childhood  is  the 
description  of  his  parents  and  environment  :  this  is  his  z'warti- 
culate  but  highly  important  history,  in  those  first  times,  while 
of  articulate  he  has  yet  none. 

Edward  Sterling  had  now  just  entered  on  his  thirty-fourth 
year  ;  and  was  already  a  man  experienced  in  fortunes  and 
changes.  A  native  of  Waterford  in  Munster,  as  already  men- 
tioned ;  born  in  the  'Deanery  House  of  Waterford,  27th  Feb- 
ruary 1773,'  say  the  registers.  For  his  Father,  as  we  learn, 
resided  in  the  Deanery  House,  though  he  was  not  himself  Dean, 
but  only  '  Curate  of  the  Cathedral"  (whatever  that  may  mean)  ; 
he  was  withal  rector  of  two  other  livings,  and  the  Dean's  friend, 
— friend  indeed  of  the  Dean's  kinsmen  the  Beresfords  generally  ; 
whose  grand  house  of  Curraghmore,  near  by  Waterford,  was  a 
familiar  haunt  of  his  and  his  children's.  This  reverend  gentle- 
man, along  with  his  three  livings  and  high  acquaintanceships, 
had  inherited  political  connexions  ; — inherited  especially  a  Go- 
vernment Pension,  with  survivorship  for  still  one  life  beyond  his 
own  ;  his  father  having  been  Clerk  of  the  Irish  House  of  Com- 
mons at  the  time  of  the  Union,  of  which  office  the  lost  salary 
was  compensated  in  this  way.  The  Pension  was  of  two  hundred 


io  JOHN  STERLING. 

pounds  ;  and  only  expired  with  the  life  of  Edward,  John's  Father, 
in  1 847.  There  were,  and  still  are,  daughters  of  the  family  ; 
but  Edward  was  the  only  son  ; — descended,  too,  from  the  Scot- 
tish hero  Wallace,  as  the  old  gentleman  would  sometimes  ad- 
monish him ;  his  own  wife,  Edward's  mother,  being  of  that 
name,  and  boasting  herself,  as  most  Scotch  Wallaces  do,  to  have 
that  blood  in  her  veins. 

This  Edward  had  picked  up,  at  Waterford,  and  among  the 
young  Beresfords  of  Curraghmore  and  elsewhere,  a  thoroughly 
Irish  form  of  character  :  fire  and  fervour,  vitality  of  all  kinds, 
in  genial  abundance  ;  but  in  a  much  more  loquacious,  ostenta- 
tious, much  louder  style  than  is  freely  patronised  on  this  side  of 
the  Channel.  Of  Irish  accent  in  speech  he  had  entirely  divested 
himself,  so  as  not  to  be  traced  by  any  vestige  in  that  respect ; 
but  his  Irish  accent  of  character,  in  all  manner  of  other  more 
important  respects,  was  very  recognisable.  An  impetuous  man, 
full  of  real  energy,  and  immensely  conscious  of  the  same  ;  who 
transacted  everything  not  with  the  minimum  of  fuss  and  noise, 
but  with  the  maximum  :  a  very  Captain  Whirlwind,  as  one  was 
tempted  to  call  him. 

In  youth,  he  had  studied  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin ;  visited 
the  Inns  of  Court  here,  and  trained  himself  for  the  Irish  Bar. 
To  the  Bar  he  had  been  duly  called,  and  was  waiting  for  the 
results,  —  when,  in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  the  Irish  Rebellion 
broke-out ;  whereupon  the  Irish  Barristers  decided  to  raise  a 
corps  of  loyal  Volunteers,  and  a  complete  change  introduced 
itself  into  Edward  Sterling's  way  of  life.  For,  naturally,  he  had 
joined  the  array  of  Volunteers  ; — fought,  I  have  heard,  '  in  three 
actions  with  the  rebels'  (Vinegar  Hill,  for  one)  ;  and  doubtless 
fought  well :  but  in  the  mess-rooms,  among  the  young  military 
and  civil  officials,  with  all  of  whom  he  was  a  favourite,  he  had 
acquired  a  taste  for  soldier  life,  and  perhaps  high  hopes  of  suc- 
ceeding in  it  :  at  all  events,  having  a  commission  in  the  Lan- 
cashire Militia  offered  him,  he  accepted  that  ;  altogether  quitted 
the  Bar,  and  became  Captain  Sterling  thenceforth.  From  the 
Militia,  it  appears,  he  had  volunteered  with  his  Company  into 
the  Line  ;  and,  under  some  disappointments,  and  official  delays 
of  expected  promotion,  was  continuing  to  serve  as  Captain  there, 
'  Captain  of  the  Eighth  Battalion  of  Reserve,'  say  the  Military 
Almanacks  of  1 803, — in  which  year  the  quarters  happened  to 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE.  n 

be  Deny,  where  new  events  awaited  him.  At  a  ball  in  Derry 
lie  met  with  Miss  Hester  Coningham,  the  queen  of  the  scene, 
and  of  the  fair  world  in  Derry  at  that  time.  The  acquaintance, 
in  spite  of  some  opposition,  grew  with  vigour,  and  rapidly  ri- 
pened :  and  '  at  Fehan  Church,  Diocese  of  Derry,'  where  the 
Bride's  father  had  a  country-house,  '  on  Thursday  5th  April 
'  1804;  Hester  Coningham,  only  daughter  of  John  Coningham, 
'  Esq.,  Merchant  in  Derry,  and  of  Elizabeth  Campbell  his  wife,' 
was  wedded  to  Captain  Sterling  ;  she  happiest  to  him  happiest, 
— as  by  Nature's  kind  law  it  is  arranged. 

Mrs.  Sterling,  even  in  her  later  days,  had  still  traces  of  the 
old  beauty  :  then  and  always  she  was  a  woman  of  delicate,  pious, 
affectionate  character ;  exemplary  as  a  wife,  a  mother  and  a 
friend.  A  refined  female  nature  ;  something  tremulous  in  it, 
timid,  and  with  a  certain  rural  freshness  still  unweakened  by 
long  converse  with  the  world.  The  tall  slim  figure,  always  of  a 
kind  of  quaker  neatness ;  the  innocent  anxious  face,  anxious 
bright  hazel  eyes  ;  the  timid,  yet  gracefully  cordial  ways,  the 
natural  intelligence,  instinctive  sense  and  worth,  were  very  cha- 
racteristic. Her  voice  too  ;  with  its  something  of  soft  queru- 
lousness,  easily  adapting  itself  to  a  light  thin-flowing  style  of 
mirth  on  occasion,  was  characteristic  :  she  had  retained  her 
Ulster  intonations,  and  was  withal  somewhat  copious  in  speech. 
A  fine  tremulously  sensitive  nature,  strong  chiefly  on  the  side  of 
the  affections,  and  the  graceful  insights  and  activities  that  de- 
pend on  these  : — truly  a  beautiful,  much-suffering,  much-loving 
house-mother.  From  her  chiefly,  as  one  could  discern,  John 
Sterling  had  derived  the  delicate  aroma  of  his  nature,  its  piety, 
clearness,  sincerity  ;  as  from  his  Father,  the  ready  practical 
gifts,  the  impetuosities  and  the  audacities,  were  also  (though  in 
strange  new  form)  visibly  inherited.  A  man  was  lucky  to  have 
such  a  Mother ;  to  have  such  Parents  as  both  his  were. 

Meanwhile  the  new  Wife  appears  to  have  had,  for  the  pre- 
sent, no  marriage-portion  ;  neither  was  Edward  Sterling  rich, — 
according  to  his  own  ideas  and  aims,  far  from  it.  Of  course  he 
soon  found  that  the  fluctuating  barrack-life,  especially  with  no 
outlooks  of  speedy  promotion,  was  little  suited  to  his  new  cir- 
cumstances :  but  how  change  it  ?  His  father  was  now  dead  ; 
from  whom  he  had  inherited  the  Speaker  Pension  of  two  hun- 
dred pounds  ;  but  of  available  probably  little  or  nothing  more. 


12  JOHN  STERLING. 

The  rents  of  the  small  family  estate,  I  suppose,  and  other  pro- 
perty, had  gone  to  portion  sisters.  Two  hundred  pounds,  and 
the  pay  of  a  marching  captain  :  within  the  limits  of  that  revenue 
all  plans  of  his  had  to  restrict  themselves  at  present. 

He  continued  for  some  time  longer  in  the  Army  ;  his  wife 
undivided  from  him  by  the  hardships  of  that  way  of  life.  Their 
first  son  Anthony  (Captain  Anthony  Sterling,  the  only  child  who 
now  survives)  was  born  to  them  in  this  position,  while  lying  at 
Dundalk,  in  January  1805.  Two  months  later,  some  eleven 
months  after  their  marriage,  the  regiment  was  broken  ;  and 
Captain  Sterling,  declining  to  serve  elsewhere  on  the  terms 
offered,  and  willingly  accepting  such  decision  of  his  doubts,  was 
reduced  to  half-pay.  This  was  the  end  of  his  soldiering  :  some 
five  or  six  years  in  all  ;  from  which  he  had  derived  for  life, 
among  other  things,  a  decided  military  bearing,  whereof  he  was 
rather  proud  ;  an  incapacity  for  practising  law  ; — and  consider- 
able uncertainty  as  to  what  his  next  course  of  life  was  now  to  be. 

For  the  present,  his  views  lay  towards  farming  :  to  establish 
himself,  if  not  as  country  gentleman,  which  was  an  unattainable 
ambition,  then  at  least  as  some  kind  of  gentleman-farmer  which 
had  a  flattering  resemblance  to  that.  Kaimes  Castle  with  a 
reasonable  extent  of  land,  which,  in  his  inquiries  after  farms, 
had  turned  up,  was  his  first  place  of  settlement  in  this  new  ca- 
pacity ;  and  here,  for  some  few  months,  he  had  established  him- 
self when  John  his  second  child  was  born.  This  was  Captain 
Sterling's  first  attempt  towards  a  fixed  course  of  life  ;  not  a  very 
wise  one,  I  have  understood  : — yet  on  the  whole,  who,  then  and 
there,  could  have  pointed  out  to  him  a  wiser  ? 

A  fixed  course  of  life  and  activity  he  could  never  attain,  or 
not  till  very  late ;  and  this  doubtless  was  among  the  important 
points  of  his  destiny,  and  acted  both  on  his  own  character  and 
that  of  those  who  had  to  attend  him  on  his  wayfarings. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SCHOOLS  :  LLANBLETHIAN  ;  PARIS  ;  LONDON. 

EDWARD  STERLING  never  shone  in  farming ;  indeed  I  be- 
lieve he  never  took  heartily  to  it,  or  tried  it  except  in  fits.  His 
Bute  farm  was,  at  best,  a  kind  of  apology  for  some  far  different 


•  SCHOOLS  :  LLANBLETHIAN.  13 

ideal  of  a  country  establishment  which  could  not  be  realised  : 
practically  a  temporary  landing-place  from  which  he  could  make 
sallies  and  excursions  in  search  of  some  more  generous  field 
of  enterprise.  Stormy  brief  efforts  at  energetic  husbandry,  at 
agricultural  improvement  and  rapid  field-labour,  alternated  with 
sudden  flights  to  Dublin,  to  London,  whithersoever  any  flush 
of  bright  outlook  which  he  could  denominate  practical,  or  any 
gleam  of  hope  which  his  impatient  ennui  could  represent  as 
such,  allured  him.  This  latter  was  often  enough  the  case.  In 
wet  hay-times  and  harvest-times,  the  dripping  out-door  world, 
and  lounging  in-door  one,  in  the  absence  of  the  master,  offered 
far  from  a  satisfactory  appearance  !  Here  was,  in  fact,  a  man 
much  imprisoned  ;  haunted,  I  doubt  not,  by  demons  enough  ; 
though  ever  brisk  and  brave  withal, — iracund,  but  cheerfully 
vigorous,  opulent  in  wise  or  unwise  hope.  A  fiery  energetic 
soul  consciously  and  unconsciously  storming  for  deliverance  into 
better  arenas  ;  and  this  in  a  restless,  rapid,  impetuous,  rather 
than  in  a  strong,  silent  and  deliberate  way. 

In  rainy  Bute  and  the  dilapidated  Kaimes  Castle,  it  was 
evident,  there  lay  no  Goshen  for  such  a  man.  The  lease, 
originally  but  for  some  three  years  and  a  half,  drawing  now  to 
a  close,  he  resolved  to  quit  Bute ;  had  heard,  I  know  not  where, 
of  an  eligible  cottage  without  farm  attached,  in  the  pleasant 
little  village  of  Llanblethian  close  by  Cowbridge  in  Glamorgan- 
shire ;  of  this  he  took  a  lease,  and  thither  with  his  family  he 
moved  in  search  of  new  fortunes.  Glamorganshire  was  at  least 
a  better,  climate  than  Bute  ;  no  groups  of  idle  or  of  busy  reapers 
could  here  stand  waiting  on  the  guidance  of  a  master,  for  there 
was  no  farm  here  ; — and  among  its  other  and  probably  its  chief 
though  secret  advantages,  Llanblethian  was  much  more  conve- 
nient both  for  Dublin  and  London  than  Kaimes  Castle  had  been. 

The  removal  thither  took  place  in  the  autumn  of  1 809. 
Chief  part  of  the  journey  (perhaps  from  Greenock  to  Swansea 
or  Bristol)  was  by  sea  :  John,  just  turned  of  three  years,  could 
in  aftertimes  remember  nothing  of  this  voyage  ;  Anthony,  some 
eighteen  months  older,  has  still  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  gray 
splashing  tumult,  and  dim  sorrow,  uncertainty,  regret  and  dis- 
tress he  underwent  :  to  him  a  '  dissolving-view'  which  not  only 
left  its  effect  on  the  plate  (as  all  views  and  dissolving-views 
doubtless  do  on  that  kind  of  '  plate'),  bp*  remained  consciously 


14  JOHN  STERLING. 

present  there.  John,  in  the  close  of  his  twenty-first  year,  pro- 
fesses not  to  remember  anything  whatever  of  Bute  ;  his  whole 
existence,  in  that  earliest  scene  of  it,  had  faded  away  from  him  : 
Bute  also,  with  its  shaggy  mountains,  moaning  woods,  and  sum- 
mer and  winter  seas,  had  been  wholly  a  dissolving-view  for 
him,  and  had  left  no  conscious  impression,  but  only,  like  this 
voyage,  an  effect. 

Llanblethian  hangs  pleasantly,  with  its  white  cottages,  and 
orchard  and  other  trees,  on  the  western  slope  of  a  green  hill ; 
looking  far  and  wide  over  green  meadows  and  little  or  bigger 
hills,  in  the  pleasant  plain  of  Glamorgan  ;  a  short  mile  to  the 
south  of  Cowbridge,  to  which  smart  little  town  it  is  properly  a 
kind  of  suburb.  Plain  of  Glamorgan,  some  ten  miles  wide  and 
thirty  or  forty  long,  which  they  call  the  Vale  of  Glamorgan  ; — 
though  properly  it  is  not  quite  a  Vale,  there  being  only  one 
range  of  mountains  to  it,  if  even  one  :  certainly  the  central 
Mountains  of  Wales  do  gradually  rise,  in  a  miscellaneous  man- 
ner, on  the  north  side  of  it ;  but  on  the  south  are  no  moun- 
tains, not  even  land,  only  the  Bristol  Channel,  and  far  off,  the 
Hills  of  Devonshire,  for  boundary, — the  "  English  Hills,"  as 
the  natives  call  them,  visible  from  every  eminence  in  those 
parts.  On  such  wide  terms  is  it  called  Vale  of  Glamorgan. 
But  called  by  whatever  name,  it  is  a  most  pleasant  fruitful  re- 
gion :  kind  to  the  native,  interesting  to  the  visitor.  A  waving 
grassy  region  ;  cut  with  innumerable  ragged  lanes  ;  dotted  with 
sleepy  unswept  human  hamlets,  old  ruinous  castles  with  their 
ivy  and  their  daws,  gray  sleepy  churches  with  their  ditto  ditto : 
for  ivy  everywhere  abounds  ;  and  generally  a  rank  fragrant 
vegetation  clothes  all  things  ;  hanging,  in  rude  many-coloured 
festoons  and  fringed  odoriferous  tapestries,  on  your  right  and 
on  your  left,  in  every  lane.  A  country  kinder  to  the  sluggard 
husbandman  than  any  I  have  ever  seen.  For  it  lies  all  on 
limestone,  needs  no  draining ;  the  soil,  everywhere  of  hand- 
some depth  and  finest  quality,  will  grow  good  crops  for  you  with 
the  most  imperfect  tilling.  At  a  safe  distance  of  a  day's  riding 
lie  the  tartarean  copperforges  of  Swansea,  the  tartarean  iron- 
forges  of  Merthyr  ;  their  sooty  battle  far  away,  and  not,  at  such 
safe  distance,  a  defilement  to  the  face  of  the  earth  and  sky,  but 
rather  an  encouragement  to  the  earth  at  least ;  encouraging  the 
husbandman  to  plough  better,  if  he  only  would. 


SCHOOLS  :  LLANBLETHIAN.  15 

The  peasantry  seem  indolent  and  stagnant,  but  peaceable 
and  well-provided  ;  much  given  to  Methodism  when  they  have 
any  character; — for  the  rest,  an  innocent  good-humoured 
people,  who  all  drink  home-brewed  beer,  and  have  brown  loaves 
of  the  most  excellent  homebaked  bread.  The  native  peasant 
village  is  not  generally  beautiful,  though  it  might  be,  were  it 
swept  and  trimmed  ;  it  gives  one  rather  the  idea  of  sluttish 
stagnancy, — an  interesting  peep  into  the  Welsh  Paradise  of 
Sleepy  Hollow.  Stones,  old  kettles,  naves  of  wheels,  all  kinds 
of  broken  litter,  with  live  pigs  and  etceteras,  lie  about  the 
street :  for,  as  a  rule,  no  rubbish  is  removed,  but  waits  patiently 
the  action  of  mere  natural  chemistry  and  accident ;  if  even  a 
house  is  burnt  or  falls,  you  will  find  it  there  after  half  a  cen- 
tury, only  cloaked  by  the  every-ready  ivy.  Sluggish  man  seems 
never  to  have  struck  a  pick  into  it ;  his  new  hut  is  built  close 
by  on  ground  not  encumbered,  and  the  old  stones  are  still  left 
lying. 

This  is  the  ordinary  Welsh  village  ;  but  there  are  excep- 
tions, where  people  of  more  cultivated  tastes  have  been  led  to 
settle,  and  Llanblethian  is  one  of  the  more  signal  of  these.  A 
decidedly  cheerful  group  of  human  homes,  the  greater  part  of 
them  indeed  belonging  to  persons  of  refined  habits  ;  trimness, 
shady  shelter,  whitewash,  neither  conveniency  nor  decoration 
has  been  neglected  here.  Its  effect  from  the  distance  on  the 
eastward  is  very  pretty  :  you  see  it  like  a  little  sleeping  cataract 
of  white  houses,  with  trees  overshadowing  and  fringing  it  ;  and 
there  the  cataract  hangs,  and  does  not  rush  away  from  you. 

John  Sterling  spent  his  next  five  years  in  this  locality.  He 
did  not  again  see  it  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  ;  but  retained,  all 
his  life,  a  lively  remembrance  of  it ;  and,  just  in  the  end  of  his 
twenty-first  year,  among  his  earliest  printed  pieces,  we  find  an 
elaborate  and  diffuse  description  of  it  and  its  relations  to  him, 
— part  of  which  piece,  in  spite  of  its  otherwise  insignificant 
quality,  may  find  place  here  : 

'  The  fields  on  which  I  first  looked,  and  the  sands  which 
'  were  marked  by  my  earliest  footsteps,  are  completely  lost  to 
'  my  memory  ;  and  of  those  ancient  walls  among  which  I  began 
'  to  breathe,  I  retain  no  recollection  more  clear  than  the  outlines 

'  of  a  cloud  in  a  moonless  sky.  But  of  L ,  the  village  where 

'  I  afterwards  lived,  I  persuade  myself  that  every  line  and  hue 


16  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  is  more  deeply  and  accurately  fixed  than  those  of  any  spot  I 
'  have  since  beheld,  even  though  borne-in  upon  the  heart  by  the 
'  association  of  the  strongest  feelings. 

'  My  home  was  built  upon  the  slope  of  a  hill,  with  a  little 
'  orchard  stretching  down  before  it,  and  a  garden  rising  behind. 
'  At  a  considerable  distance  beyond  and  beneath  the  orchard, 
'  a  rivulet  flowed  through  meadows  and  turned  a  mill ;  while, 
'  above  the  garden,  the  summit  of  the  hill  was  crowned  by  a 
'  few  gray  rocks,  from  which  a  yew-tree  grew,  solitary  and  bare. 
'  Extending  at  each  side  of  the  orchard,  toward  the  brook,  two 
'  scattered  patches  of  cottages  lay  nestled  among  their  gardens ; 
'  and  beyond  this  streamlet  and  the  little  mill  and  bridge,  an- 
'  other  slight  eminence  arose,  divided  into  green  fields,  tufted 
'  and  bordered  with  copsewood,  and  crested  by  a  ruined  castle, 
'  contemporary,  as  was  said,  with  the  Conquest.  I  know  not 
'  whether  these  things  in  truth  made-up  a  prospect  of  much 
'  beauty.  Since  I  was  eight  years  old,  I  have  never  seen  them  ; 
'  but  I  well  know  that  no  landscape  I  have  since  beheld,  no 
'  picture  of  Claude  or  Salvator,  gave  me  half  the  impression  of 
'  living,  heartfelt,  perfect  beauty  which  fills  my  mind  when  I 
'  think  of  that  green  valley,  that  sparkling  rivulet,  that  broken 
'  fortress  of  dark  antiquity,  and  that  hill  with  its  aged  yew  and 
'  breezy  summit,  from  which  I  have  so  often  looked  over  the 
'  broad  stretch  of  verdure  beneath  it,  and  the  country-town, 
'  and  church-tower,  silent  and  white  beyond. 

'  In  that  little  town  there  was,  and  I  believe  is,  a  school 
'  where  the  elements  of  human  knowledge  were  communicated 
'  to  me,  for  some  hours  of  every  day,  during  a  considerable  time. 
'  The  path  to  it  lay  across  the  rivulet  and  past  the  mill ;  from 
'  which  point  we  could  either  journey  through  the  fields  below 
'  the  old  castle,  and  the  wood  which  surrounded  it,  or  along  a 
1  road  at  the  other  side  of  the  ruin,  close  to  the  gateway  of  which 
'  it  passed.  The  former  track  led  through  two  or  three  beau- 
'  tiful  fields,  the  sylvan  domain  of  the  keep  on  one  hand,  and 
'  the  brook  on  the  other  ;  while  an  oak  or  two,  like  giant  war- 
'  ders  advanced  from  the  wood,  broke  the  sunshine  of  the  green 
'  with  a  soft  and  graceful  shadow.  How  often,  on  my  way  to 
1  school,  have  I  stopped  beneath  the  tree  to  collect  the  fallen 
'  acorns  ;  how  often  run  down  to  the  stream  to  pluck  a  branch 
'  of  the  hawthorn  which  hung  over  the  water !  The  road  which 


SCHOOLS  :  LLANBLETHIAN.  17 

'  passed  the  castle  joined,  beyond  these  fields,  the  path  which 
'  traversed  them.  It  took,  I  well  remember,  a  certain  solemn 
'  and  mysterious  interest  from  the  ruin.  The  shadow  of  the 
'  archway,  the  discolorisations  of  time  on  all  the  walls,  the  dim- 
'  ness  of  the  little  thicket  which  encircled  it,  the  traditions  of  its 
'  immeasurable  age,  made  St.  Quentin's  Castle  a  wonderful  and 
'  awful  fabric  in  the  imagination  of  a  child  ;  and  long  after  I 
'  last  saw  its  mouldering  roughness,  I  never  read  of  fortresses, 
'  or  heights,  or  spectres,  or  banditti,  without  connecting  them 
'  with  the  one  ruin  of  my  childhood. 

'  It  was  close  to  this  spot  that  one  of  the  few  adventures 
'  occurred  which  marked,  in  my  mind,  my  boyish  days  with 
'  importance.  When  loitering  beyond  the  castle,  on  the  way 
'  to  school,  with  a  brother  somewhat  older  than  myself,  who 
'  was  uniformly  my  champion  and  protector,  we  espied  a  round 
'  sloe  high  up  in  the  hedge-row.  We  determined  to  obtain  it ; 
'  and  I  do  not  remember  whether  both  of  us,  or  only  my 
'  brother,  climbed  the  tree.  However,  when  the  prize  was  all- 
'  but  reached, — and  no  alchymist  ever  looked  more  eagerly  for 
'  the  moment  of  projection  which  was  to  give  him  immortality 
'  and  omnipotence, — a  gruff  voice  startled  us  with  an  oath,  and 
'  an  order  to  desist  ;  and  I  well  recollect  looking  back,  for  long 
'  after',  with  terror  to  the  vision  of  an  old  and  ill-tempered  far- 
'  mer,  armed  with  a  bill-hook,  and  vowing  our  decapitation  ; 
'  nor  did  I  subsequently  remember  without  triumph  the  elo- 
'  quence  whereby  alone,  in  my  firm  belief,  my  brother  and  my- 
'  self  had  been  rescued  from  instant  death. 

'  At  the  entrance  of  the  little  town  stood  an  old  gateway, 
'  with  a  pointed  arch  and  decaying  battlements.  It  gave  ad- 
'  mittance  to  the  street  which  contained  the  church,  and  which 
'  terminated  in  another  street,  the  principal  one  in  the  town  of 

'  C -.  In  this  was  situated  the  school  to  which  I  daily 

'  wended.  I  cannot  now  recall  to  mind  the  face  of  its  good 
'  conductor,  nor  of  any  of  his  scholars  ;  but  I  have  before  me 
'  a  strong  general  image  of  the  interior  of  his  establishment. 
'  I  remember  the  reverence  with  which  I  was  wont  to  carry  to 
4  his  seat  a  well-thumbed  duodecimo,  the  History  of  Greece  by 
'  Oliver  Goldsmith.  I  remember  the  mental  agonies  I  endured 
'  in  attempting  to  master  the  art  and  mystery  of  penmanship  ; 
'  a  craft  in  which,  alas,  I  remained  too  short  a  time  under  Mr. 

c 


1 8  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  R — - —  to  become  as  great  a  proficient  as  he  made  his  other 
'  scholars,  and  which  my  awkwardness  has  prevented  me  from 
'  attaining  in  any  considerable  perfection  under  my  various  sub- 
'  sequent  pedagogues.  But  that  which  has  left  behind  it  a 
'  brilliant  trait  of  light  was  the  exhibition  of  what  are  called 
'  "  Christmas  pieces  ;"  things  unknown  in  aristocratic  semi- 
'  naries,  but  constantly  used  at  the  comparatively  humble 
1  academy  which  supplied  the  best  knowledge  of  reading,  writ- 
'  ing,  and  arithmetic  to  be  attained  in  that  remote  neighbour- 
'  hood. 

'  The  long  desks  covered  from  end  to  end  with  those  painted 
'  masterpieces,  the  Life  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  the  Hunting  of 
'  Chevy-Chase,  the  History  of  Jack  the  Giant-Killer,  and  all  the 
'  little  eager  faces  and  trembling  hands  bent  over  these,  and 
'  filling  them  up  with  some  choice  quotation,  sacred  or  profane ; 
'  — no,  the  galleries  of  art,  the  theatrical  exhibitions,  the  re- 
'  views  and  processions, — which  are  only  not  childish  because 
'  they  are  practised  and  admired  by  men  instead  of  children, — 
'  all  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  great  cities,  have  shown  me  no 
'  revelation  of  glory  such  as  did  that  crowded  school-room  the 
'  week  before  the  Christmas  holidays.  But  these  were  the 
'  splendours  of  life.  The  truest  and  the  strongest  feelings  do 
'  not  connect  themselves  with  any  scenes  of  gorgeous  and 
'  gaudy  magnificence  ;  they  are  bound-up  in  the  remembrances 
'  of  home. 

'  The  narrow  orchard,  with  its  grove  of  old  apple-trees, 
'  against  one  of  which  I  used  to  lean,  and  while  I  brandished  a 
'  beanstalk,  roar  out  with  Fitzjames, 

"Come  one,  come  all ;  this  rock  shall  fly 
From  its  firm  base  as  soon  as  I ! " — 

'  while  I  was  ready  to  squall  at  the  sight  of  a  cur,  and  run 
'  valorously  away  from  a  casually  approaching  cow ;  the  field 
'  close  beside  it,  where  I  rolled  about  in  summer  among  the 
'  hay  ;  the  brook  in  which,  despite  of  maid  and  mother,  I  waded 
1  by  the  hour ;  the  garden  where  I  sowed  flower-seeds,  and 
'  then  turned  up  the  ground  again  and  planted  potatoes,  and 
1  then  rooted-out  the  potatoes  to  insert  acorns  and  apple-pips, 
1  and  at  last,  as  may  be  supposed,  reaped  neither  roses,  nor 
'  potatoes,  nor  oak-trees,  nor  apples  ;  the  grass-plots  on  which 


SCHOOLS  :  LLANBLETHIAN.  19 

'  I  played  among  those  with  whom  I  never  can  play  nor  work 
'again:  all  these  are  places  and  employments, — and,  alas, 
'  playmates, — such  as,  if  it  were  worth  while  to  weep  at  all,  it 
'  would  be  worth  weeping  that  I  enjoy  no  longer. 

'  I  remember  the  house  where  I  first  grew  familiar  with  pea- 
'  cocks  ;  and  the  mill-stream  into  which  I  once  fell ;  and  the 
'  religious  awe  wherewith  I  heard,  in  the  warm  twilight,  the 
'  psalm-singing  around  the  house  of  the  Methodist  miller  ;  and 
'  the  door-post  against  which  I  discharged  my  brazen  artillery; 
'  I  remember  the  window  by  which  I  sat  while  my  mother 
'  taught  me  French  ;  and  the  patch  of  garden  which  I  dug 

'  for But  her  name  is  best  left  blank  ;  it  was  indeed  writ 

'  in  water.  These  recollections  are  to  me  like  the  wealth  of  a 
'  departed  friend,  a  mournful  treasure.  But  the  public  has 
'  heard  enough  of  them  ;  to  it  they  are  worthless  :  they  are  a 
'  coin  which  only  circulates  at  its  true  value  between  the  differ- 
'  ent  periods  of  an  individual's  existence,  and  good  for  nothing 
'  but  to  keep-up  a  commerce  between  boyhood  and  manhood. 
'  I  have  for  years  looked  forward  to  the  possibility  of  visiting 

'  L ;  but  I  am  told  that  it  is  a  changed  village  ;  and  not  only 

'  has  man  been  at  work,  but  the  old  yew  on  the  hill  has  fallen, 
'  and  scarcely  a  low  stump  remains  of  the  tree  which  I  de- 
'  lighted  in  childhood  to  think  might  have  furnished  bows  for 
'  the  Norman  archers.'1 

In  Cowbridge  is  some  kind  of  free  school,  or  grammar- 
school,  of  a  certain  distinction  ;  and  this  to  Captain  Sterling 
was  probably  a  motive  for  settling  in  the  neighbourhood  of  it 
with  his  children.  Of  this  however,  as  it  turned  out,  there  was 
no  use  made  :  the  Sterling  family,  during  its  continuance  in 
those  parts,  did  not  need  more  than  a  primary  school.  The 
worthy  master  who  presided  over  these  Christmas  galas,  and 
had  the  honour  to  teach  John  Sterling  his  reading  and  writing, 
was  an  elderly  Mr.  Reece  of  Cowbridge,  who  still  (in  1851) 
survives,  or  lately  did  ;  and  is  still  remembered  by  his  old 
pupils  as  a  worthy,  ingenious  and  kindly  man,  "who  wore  drab 
breeches  and  white  stockings."  Beyond  the  Reece  sphere  of 
tuition  John  Sterling  did  not  go  in  this  locality. 

In  fact  the  Sterling  household  was  still  fluctuating  ;  the  pro- 

1  Literary  Chronicle,  New  Series;   London,  Saturday  aistjune  1828, 
Art.  ii. 


20  JOHN  STERLING. 

blem  of  a  task  for  Edward  Sterling's  powers,  and  of  anchorage 
for  his  affairs  in  any  sense,  was  restlessly  struggling  to  solve 
itself,  but  was  still  a  good  way  from  being  solved.  Anthony, 
in  revisiting  these  scenes  with  John  in  1839,  mentions  going  to 
the  spot  "  where  we  used  to  stand  with  our  Father,  looking  out 
for  the  arrival  of  the  London  mail :"  a  little  chink  through 
which  is  disclosed  to  us  a  big  restless  section  of  a  human  life. 
The  Hill  of  Welsh  Llanblethian,  then,  is  like  the  mythic  Cau- 
casus in  its  degree  (as  indeed  all  hills  and  habitations  where 
men  sojourn  are)  ;  and  here  too,  on  a  small  scale,  is  a  Pro- 
metheus Chained  ?  Edward  Sterling,  I  can  well  understand, 
was  a  man  to  tug  at  the  chains  that  held  him  idle  in  those  the 
prime  of  his  years  ;  and  to  ask  restlessly,  yet  not  in  anger 
and  remorse,  so  much  as  in  hope,  locomotive  speculation,  and 
ever-new  adventure  and  attempt,  Is  there  no  task  nearer  my 
own  natural  size,  then  ?  So  he  looks  out  from  the  Hill-side 
'  for  the  arrival  of  the  London  mail ;'  thence  hurries  into  Cow- 
bridge  to  the  Post-office  ;  and  has  a  wide  web,  of  threads  and 
gossamers,  upon  his  loom,  and  many  shuttles  flying,  in  this 
world. 

By  the  Marquis  of  Bute's  appointment  he  had,  very  shortly 
after  his  arrival  in  that  region,  become  Adjutant  of  the  Glamor- 
ganshire Militia,  '  Local  Militia,'  I  suppose  ;  and  was,  in  this 
way,  turning  his  military  capabilities  to  some  use.  The  office 
involved  pretty  frequent  absences,  in  Cardiff  and  elsewhere. 
This  doubtless  was  a  welcome  outlet,  though  a  small  one.  He 
had  also  begun  to  try  writing,  especially  on  public  subjects  ;  a 
much  more  copious  outlet, — which  indeed,  gradually  widening 
itself,  became  the  final  solution  for  him.  Of  the  year  1 8 1 1  we 
have  a  Pamphlet  of  his,  entitled  Military  Reform;  this  is  the 
second  edition,  '  dedicated  to  the  Duke  of  Kent ;'  the  first  ap- 
pears to  have  come-out  the  year  before,  and  had  thus  attained 
a  certain  notice,  which  of  course  was  encouraging.  He  now 
furthermore  opened  a  correspondence  with  the  Times  News- 
paper ;  wrote  to  it,  in  1812,  a  series  of  Letters  under  the  sig- 
nature Vetus  :  voluntary  Letters  I  suppose,  without  payment 
or  preengagement,  one  successful  Letter  calling  out  another  ; 
till  Vetus  and  his  doctrines  came  to  be  a  distinguishable  entity, 
and  the  business  amounted  to  something.  Out  of  my  own 
earliest  Newspaper  reading,  I  can  remember  the  name  Vetus, 


SCHOOLS  :  PARIS.  21 

as  a  kind  of  editorial  backlog  on  which  able-editors  were  wont 
to  chop  straw  now  and  then.  Nay  the  Letters  were  collected 
and  reprinted  ;  both  this  first  series,  of  1 8 1 2,  and  then  a  second 
of  next  year  :  two  very  thin,  very  dim-coloured  cheap  octavos  ; 
stray  copies  of  which  still  exist,  and  may  one  day  become  dis- 
tillable  into  a  drop  of  History  (should  such  be  wanted  of  our 
poor  '  Scavenger  Age'  in  time  coming),  though  the  reading  of 
them  has  long  ceased  in  this  generation.2  The  first  series,  we 
perceive,  had  even  gone  to  a  second  edition.  The  tone,  wher- 
ever one  timidly  glances  into  this  extinct  cockpit,  is  trenchant 
and  emphatic  :  the  name  of  Vetus,  strenuously  fighting  there, 
had  become  considerable  in  the  talking  political  world ;  and, 
no  doubt,  was  especially  of  mark,  as  that  of  a  writer  who  might 
otherwise  be  important,  with  the  proprietors  of  the  Times.  The 
connexion  continued  :  widened  and  deepened  itself, — in  a  slow 
tentative  manner  ;  passing  naturally  from  voluntary  into  remu- 
nerated :  and  indeed  proving  more  and  more  to  be  the  true 
ultimate  arena,  and  battlefield  and  seedfield,  for  the  exuberant 
impetuosities  and  faculties  of  this  man. 

What  the  Letters  of  Vetus  treated  of  I  do  not  know ;  doubt- 
less they  ran  upon  Napoleon,  Catholic  Emancipation,  true 
methods  of  national  defence,  of  effective  foreign  Antigallicism, 
and  of  domestic  ditto  ;  which  formed  the  staple  of  editorial 
speculation  at  that  time.  I  have  heard  in  general  that  Captain 
Sterling,  then  and  afterwards,  advocated  '  the  Marquis  of  Wel- 
lesley's  policy  ;'  but  that  also,  what  it  was,  I  have  forgotten, 
and  the  world  has  been  willing  to  forget.  Enough,  the  heads 
of  the  Times  establishment,  perhaps  already  the  Marquis  of 
Wellesley  and  other  important  persons,  had  their  eye  on  this 
writer  ;  and  it  began  to  be  surmised  by  him  that  here  at  last 
was  the  career  he  had  been  seeking. 

Accordingly,  in  1814,  when  victorious  Peace  unexpectedly 
arrived,  and  the  gates  of  the  Continent  after  five-and-twenty 
years  of  fierce  closure  were  suddenly  thrown  open  ;  and  the 
hearts  of  all  English  and  European  men  awoke  staggering  as 
if  from  a  nightmare  suddenly  removed,  and  ran  hither  and 
thither, — Edward  Sterling  also  determined  on  a  new  adventure, 

-  'The  Letters  of  Vetus  from  March  loth  to  May  loth,  1812'  (second 
edition,  Lon.  1812) :  Ditto,  '  Part  III.,  with  a  Preface  and  Notes'  (ibid.  1814). 


22  JOHN  STERLING. 

that  of  crossing  to  Paris,  and  trying  what  might  lie  in  store  for 
him.  For  curiosity,  in  its  idler  sense,  there  was  evidently  pa- 
bulum enough.  But  he  had  hopes  moreover  of  learning  much 
that  might  perhaps  avail  him  afterwards  ; — hopes  withal,  I  have 
understood,  of  getting  to  be  Foreign  Correspondent  of  the  Times 
Newspaper,  and  so  adding  to  his  income  in  the  meanwhile.  He 
left  Llanblethian  in  May  ;  dates  from  Dieppe  the  27th  of  that 
month.  He  lived  in  occasional  contact  with  Parisian  notabili- 
ties (all  of  them  except  Madame  de  Stael  forgotten  now),  all 
summer,  diligently  surveying  his  ground; — returned  for  his 
family,  who  were  still  in  Wales  but  ready  to  move,  in  the  be- 
ginning of  August  ;  took  them  immediately  across  with  him ; 
a  house  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Paris,  in  the  pleasant  village 
of  Passy  at  once  town  and  country,  being  now  ready  ;  and  so, 
under  foreign  skies,  again  set-up  his  household  there. 

Here  was  a  strange  new  '  school'  for  our  friend  John,  now  in 
his  eighth  year  !  Out  of  which  the  little  Anthony  and  he  drank 
doubtless  at  all  pores,  vigorously  as  they  had  done  in  no  school 
before.  A  change  total  and  immediate.  Somniferous  green 
Llanblethian  has  suddenly  been  blotted  out ;  presto,  here  are 
wakeful  Passy  and  the  noises  of  paved  Paris  instead.  Innocent 
ingenious  Mr.  Reece  in  drab  breeches  and  white  stockings,  he 
with  his  mild  Christmas  galas  and  peaceable  rules  of  Dilworth 
and  Butterworth,  has  given  place  to  such  a  saturnalia  of  pano- 
ramic, symbolic  and  other  teachers  and  monitors,  addressing 
all  the  five  senses  at  once.  Who  John's  express  tutors  were, 
at  Passy,  I  never  heard  ;  nor  indeed,  especially  in  his  case,  was 
it  much  worth  inquiring.  To  him  and  to  all  of  us,  the  ex- 
pressly appointed  schoolmasters  and  schoolings  we  get  are  as 
nothing,  compared  with  the  unappointed  incidental  and  con- 
tinual ones,  whose  school-hours  are  all  the  days  and  nights  of 
our  existence,  and  whose  lessons,  noticed  or  unnoticed,  stream-in 
upon  us  with  every  breath  we  draw.  Anthony  says  they  attended 
a  French  school,  though  only  for  about  three  months  ;  and  he 
well  remembers  the  last  scene  of  it,  '  the  boys  shouting  Vive 
tEmpereur  when  Napoleon  came  back.' 

Of  John  Sterling's  express  schooling,  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant feature,  and  by  no  means  a  favourable  one  to  him,  was 
the  excessive  fluctuation  that  prevailed  in  it.  Change  of  scene, 
change  of  teacher,  both  express  and  implied,  was  incessant  with 


SCHOOLS  :  LONDON.  23 

him ;  and  gave  his  young  life  a  nomadic  character,  — which 
surely,  of  all  the  adventitious  tendencies  that  could  have  been 
impressed  upon  him,  so  volatile,  swift  and  airy  a  being  as  him, 
was  the  one  he  needed  least.  His  gentle  pious-hearted  Mother, 
ever  watching  over  him  in  all  outward  changes,  and  assiduously 
keeping  human  pieties  and  good  affections  alive  in  him,  was  pro- 
bably the  best  counteracting  element  in  his  lot.  And  on  the 
whole,  have  we  uot  all  to  run  our  chance  in  that  respect  ;  and 
take,  the  most  victoriously  we  can,  such  schooling  as  pleases 
to  be  attainable  in  our  year  and  place  ?  Not  very  victoriously, 
the  most  of  us  !  A  wise  well -calculated  breeding  of  a  young 
genial  soul  in  this  world,  or,  alas,  of  any  young  soul  in  it,  lies 
fatally  over  the  horizon  in  these  epochs  ! — This  French  scene 
of  things,  a  grand  school  of  its  sort,  and  also  a  perpetual 
banquet  for  the  young  soul,  naturally  captivated  John  Sterling ; 
he  said  afterwards,  '  New  things  and  experiences  here  were 
'  poured  upon  his  mind  and  sense,  not  in  streams,  but  in  a 
'  Niagara  cataract.'  This  too,  however,  was  but  a  scene  ;  lasted 
only  some  six  or  seven  months  ;  and  in  the  spring  of  the  next 
year  terminated  as  abruptly  as  any  of  the  rest  could  do. 

For,  in  the  spring  of  the  next  year,  Napoleon  abruptly 
emerged  from  Elba  ;  and  set  all  the  populations  of  the  world 
in  motion,  in  a  strange  manner ; — set  the  Sterling  household 
afloat,  in  particular  ;  the  big  European  tide  rushing  into  all 
smallest  creeks,  at  Passy  and  elsewhere.  In  brief,  on  the  2oth 
of  March  1815,  the  family  had  to  shift,  almost  to  fly,  towards 
home  and  the  seacoast ;  and  for  a  day  or  two  were  under  appre- 
hension of  being  detained  and  not  reaching  home.  Mrs.  Ster- 
ling, with  her  children  and  effects,  all  in  one  big  carriage  with 
two  horses,  made  the  journey  to  Dieppe  ;  in  perfect  safety, 
though  in  continual  tremor  :  here  they  were  joined  by  Captain 
Sterling,  who  had  stayed  behind  at  Paris  to  see  the  actual  ad- 
vent of  Napoleon,  and  to  report  what  the  aspect  of  affairs  was, 
"  Downcast  looks  of  citizens,  with  fierce  saturnalian  acclaim  of 
soldiery  :"  after  which  they  proceeded  together  to  London  with- 
out farther  apprehension  ; — there  to  witness,  in  due  time,  the 
tarbarrels  of  Waterloo,  and  other  phenomena  that  followed. 

Captain  Sterling  never  quitted  London  as  a  residence  any 
more  ;  and  indeed  was  never  absent  from  it,  except  on  autumnal 


24  JOHN  STERLING. 

or  other  excursions  of  a  few  weeks,  till  the  end  of  his  life. 
Nevertheless  his  course  there  was  as  yet  by  no  means  clear  ; 
nor  had  his  relations  with  the  heads  of  the  Times,  or  with  other 
high  heads,  assumed  a  form  which  could  be  called  definite,  but 
were  hanging  as  a  cloudy  maze  of  possibilities,  firm  substance 
not  yet  divided  from  shadow.  It  continued  so  for  some  years. 
The  Sterling  household  shifted  twice  or  thrice  to  new  streets  or 
localities, — Russell  Square  or  Queen  Square,  fJlackfriars  Road, 
and  longest  at  the  Grove,  Blackheath, — before  the  vapours  of 
Wellesley  promotions  and  suchlike  slowly  sank  as  useless  pre- 
cipitate, and  the  firm  rock,  which  was  definite  employment,  end- 
ing in  lucrative  co-proprietorship  and  more  and  more  important 
connexion  with  the  Times  Newspaper,  slowly  disclosed  itself. 

These  changes  of  place  naturally  brought  changes  in  John 
Sterling's  schoolmasters  :  nor  were  domestic  tragedies  wanting, 
still  more  important  to  him.  New  brothers  and  sisters  had 
been  born  ;  two  little  brothers  more,  three  little  sisters  he  had 
in  all  ;  some  of  whom  came  to  their  eleventh  year  beside  him, 
some  passed  away  in  their  second  or  fourth  :  but  from  his  ninth 
to  his  sixteenth  year  they  all  died;  and  in  1821  only  Anthony 
and  John  were  left.3  How  many  tears,  and  passionate  pangs, 
and  soft  infinite  regrets  ;  such  as  are  appointed  to  all  mortals ! 
In  one  year,  I  find,  indeed  in  one  half-year,  he  lost  three  little 
playmates,  two  of  them  within  one  month.  His  own  age  was 
not  yet  quite  twelve.  For  one  of  these  three,  for  little  Edward, 
his  next  younger,  who  died  now  at  the  age"  of  nine,  Mr.  Hare  re- 
cords that  John  copied  out,  in  large  school-hand,  a  History  of 
Valentine  and  Orson,  to  beguile  the  poor  child's  sickness,  which 
ended  in  death  soon,  leaving  a  sad  cloud  on  John. 

3  Here,  in  a  Note,  is  the  tragic  little  Register,  with  what  indications  for 
us  may  lie  in  it : 

1.  Robert  Sterling  died,  4th  June  1815,  at  Queen  Square,  in  his  fourth 

year  (John  being  now  nine). 

2.  Elizabeth  died,  I2th  March  1818,  at  Blackfriars  Road,  in  her  second 

year. 

3.  Edward,  3oth  March  1818  (same  place,  same  month  and  year),  in  his 

ninth. 

4.  Hester,  2ist  July  1818  (three  months  later),  at  Blackheath,  in  her 

eleventh. 

5.  Catherine  Hester  Elizabeth,  i6th  January  1821,  in  Seymour  Street. 


SCHOOLS  :  LONDON.  25 

Of  his  grammar  and  other  schools,  which,  as  I  said,  are 
hardly  worth  enumerating  in  comparison,  the  most  important 
seems  to  have  been  a  Dr.  Burney's  at  Greenwich  ;  a  large  day- 
school  and  boarding-school,  where  Anthony  and  John  gave 
their  attendance  for  a  year  or  two  ( 1 8 1 8 — '  1 9)  from  Black- 
heath.  'John  frequently  did  themes  for  the  boys,'  says  An- 
thony, 'and  for  myself  when  I  was  aground.'  His  progress  in 
all  school-learning  was  certain  to  be  rapid,  if  he  even  mode- 
rately took  to  it.  A  lean,  tallish,  loose-made  boy  of  twelve  ; 
strange  alacrity,  rapidity  and  joyous  eagerness  looking  out  of 
his  eyes,  and  of  all  his  ways  and  movements.  I  have  a  Picture 
of  him  at  this  stage  ;  a  little  portrait,  which  carries  its  verifica- 
tion with  it.  In  manhood  too,  the  chief  expression  of  his  eyes 
and  physiognomy  was  what  I  might  call  alacrity,  cheerful  rapid- 
ity. You  could  see,  here  looked  forth  a  soul  which  was  winged  ; 
which  dwelt  in  hope  and  action,  not  in  hesitation  or  fear.  An- 
thony says,  he  was  '  an  affectionate  and  gallant  kind  of  boy, 
adventurous  and  generous,  daring  to  a  singular  degree.'  Apt 
enough  withal  to  be  '  petulant  now  and  then  ;'  on  the  whole, 
'very  self-willed;'  doubtless  not  a  little  discursive  in  his 
thoughts  and  ways,  and  '  difficult  to  manage.' 

I  rather  think  Anthony,  as  the  steadier,  more  substantial 
boy,  was  the  Mother's  favourite  ;  and  that  John,  though  the 
quicker  and  cleverer,  perhaps  cost  her  many  anxieties.  Among 
the  Papers  given  me,  is  an  old  browned  half-sheet  in  stiff  school 
hand,  unpunctuated,  occasionally  ill  spelt, — John  Sterling's 
earliest  remaining  Letter, — which  gives  record  of  a  crowning 
escapade  of  his,  the  first  and  the  last  of  its  kind  ;  and  so  may 
be  inserted  here.  A  very  headlong  adventure  on  the  boy's  part; 
so  hasty  and  so  futile,  at  once  audacious  and  impracticable  ; 
emblematic  of  much  that  befell  in  the  history  of  the  man  ! 

'  To  Mrs.  Sterling,  Blackheath. 

'  aist  September  1818. 

'  DEAR  MAMMA, — I  am  now  at  Dover,  where  I  arrived  this 
'  morning  about  seven  o'clock.  When  you  thought  I  was  going 
'  to  church,  I  went  down  the  Kent  Road,  and  walked  on  till  I 
'  came  to  Gravesend,  which  is  upwards  of  twenty  miles  from 
'  Blackheath  ;  at  about  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  without 
'  having  eat  anything  the  whole  time.  I  applied  to  an  inkeeper 


26  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  (sic)  there,  pretending  that  I  had  served  a  haberdasher  in 
'  London,  who  left  of  (sic)  business,  and  turned  me  away.  He 
'  believed  me  ;  and  got  me  a  passage  in  the  coach  here,  for  I 
'  said  that  I  had  an  Uncle  here,  and  that  my  Father  and  Mother 
'  were  dead ; — when  I  wandered  about  the  quays  for  some  time, 
'  till  I  met  Captain  Keys,  whom  I  asked  to  give  me  a  passage 
'  to  Boulogne  ;  which  he  promised  to  do,  and  took  me  home 
'  to  breakfast  with  him  :  but  Mrs.  Keys  questioned  me  a  good 
'  deal ;  when  I  not  being  able  to  make  my  story  good,  I  was 
'  obliged  to  confess  to  her  that  I  had  run  away  from  you. 
'  Captain  Keys  says  that  he  will  keep  me  at  his  house 'till  you 
'  answer  my  letter.  J.  STERLING.' 

Anthony  remembers  the  business  well ;  but  can  assign  no 
origin  to  it, — some  penalty,  indignity  or  cross  put  suddenly  on 
John,  which  the  hasty  John  considered  unbearable.  His  Mother's 
inconsolable  weeping,  and  then  his  own  astonishment  at  such 
a  culprit's  being  forgiven,  are  all  that  remain  with  Anthony. 
The  steady  historical  style  of  the  young  runaway  of  twelve,  nar- 
rating merely,  not  in  the  least  apologising,  is  also  noticeable. 

This  was  some  six  months  after  his  little  brother  Edward's 
death  ;  three  months  after  that  of  Hester,  his  little  sister  next 
in  the  family  series  to  him  :  troubled  days  for  the  poor  Mother 
in  that  small  household  on  Blackheath,  as  there  are  for  mothers 
in  so  many  households  in  this  world  !  I  have  heard  that  Mrs. 
Sterling  passed  much  of  her  time  alone,  at  this  period.  Her 
husband's  pursuits,  with  his  Wellesleys  and  the  like,  often  carry- 
ing him  into  Town  and  detaining  him  late  there,  she  would  sit 
among  her  sleeping  children,  such  of  them  as  death  had  still 
spared,  perhaps  thriftily  plying  her  needle,  full  of  mournful 
affectionate  night-thoughts, — apprehensive  too,  in  her  tremulous 
heart,  that  the  head  of  the  house  might  have  fallen  among 
robbers  in  his  way  homeward. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

UNIVERSITIES  :    GLASGOW  ;    CAMBRIDGE. 

AT  a  later  stage,  John  had  some  instruction  from  a  Dr. 
Waite  at  Blackheath  ;  and  lastly,  the  family  having  now  re- 
moved into  Town,  to  Seymour  Street  in  the  fashionable  region 


UNIVERSITIES  :  GLASGOW.  27 

there,  he  '  read  for  a  while  with  Dr.  Trollope,  Master  of  Christ's 
Hospital  ;'  which  ended  his  school  history. 

In  this  his  ever-changing  course,  from  Reece  at  Cowbridge 
to  Trollope  in  Christ's,  which  was  passed  so  nomadically,  under 
ferulas  of  various  colour,  the  boy  had,  on  the  whole,  snatched 
successfully  a  fair  share  of  what  was  going.  Competent  skill 
in  construing  Latin,  I  think  also  an  elementary  knowledge  of 
Greek ;  add  ciphering  to  a  small  extent,  Euclid  perhaps  in  a 
rather  imaginary  condition  ;  a  swift  but  not  very  legible  or 
handsome  penmanship,  and  the  copious  prompt  habit  of  em- 
ploying it  in  all  manner  of  unconscious  English  prose  compo- 
sition, or  even  occasionally  in  verse  itself :  this,  or  something 
like  this,  he  had  gained  from  his  grammar-schools  :  this  is  the 
most  of  what  they  offer  to  the  poor  young  soul  in  general,  in 
these  indigent  times.  The  express  schoolmaster  is  not  equal 
to  much  at  present,— while  the  wwexpress,  for  good  or  for  evil, 
is  so  busy  with  a  poor  little  fellow  !  Other  departments  of 
schooling  had  been  infinitely  more  productive,  for  our  young 
friend,  than  the  gerundgrinding  one.  A  voracious  reader  I  be- 
lieve he  all  along  was, — had  '  read  the  whole  Edinburgh  Review' 
in  these  boyish  years,  and  out  of  the  circulating  libraries  one 
knows  not  what  cartloads  ;  wading  like  Ulysses  towards  his 
palace  '  through  infinite  dung.'  A  voracious  observer  and  par- 
ticipator in  all  things  he  likewise  all  along  was ;  and  had  had 
his  sights,  and  reflections,  and  sorrows  and  adventures,  from 
Kaimes  Castle  onward, — and  had  gone  at  least  to  Dover  on 
his  own  score.  P^ler  bonce  spei,  as  the  school-albums  say  ;  a 
boy  of  whom  much  may  be  hoped  ?  Surely,  in  many  senses, 
yes.  A  frank  veracity  is  in  him,  truth  and  courage,  as  the  basis 
of  all;  and  of  wild  gifts  and  graces  there  is  abundance.  I  figure 
him  a  brilliant,  swift,  voluble,  affectionate  and  pleasant  crea- 
ture ;  out  of  whom,  if  it  were  not  that  symptoms  of  delicate 
health  already  show  themselves,  great  things  might  be  made. 
Promotions  at  least,  especially  in  this  country  and  epoch  of 
parliaments  and  eloquent  palavers,  are  surely  very  possible  for 
such  a  one ! 

Being  now  turned  of  sixteen,  and  the  family  economics  get- 
ting yearly  more  propitious  and  flourishing,  he,  as  his  brother 
had  already  been,  was  sent  to  Glasgow  University,  in  which 


28  JOHN  STERLING. 

city  their  Mother  had  connexions.  His  brother  and  he  were 
now  all  that  remained  of  the  young  family  ;  much  attached  to 
one  another  in  their  College  years  as  afterwards.  Glasgow, 
however,  was  not  properly  their  College  scene  :  here,  except 
that  they  had  some  tuition  from  Mr.  Jacobson,  then  a  senior 
fellow  student,  now  (1851)  the  learned  editor  of  St.  Basil,  and 
Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  in  Oxford,  who  continued  ever 
afterwards  a  valued  intimate  of  John's,  I  find  nothing  special 
recorded  of  them.  The  Glasgow  curriculum,  for  John  especially, 
lasted  but  one  year  ;  who,  after  some  farther  tutorage  from 
Mr.  Jacobson  or  Dr.  Trollope,  was  appointed  for  a  more  ambi- 
tious sphere  of  education. 

In  the  beginning  of  his  nineteenth  year,  '  in  the  autumn  of 
1824,'  he  went  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  His  brother 
Anthony,  who  had  already  been  there  a  year,  had  just  quitted 
this  Establishment,  and  entered  on  a  military  life  under  good 
omens  ;  I  think,  at  Dublin  under  the  Lord  Lieutenant's  patron- 
age, to  whose  service  he  was,  in  some  capacity,  attached.  The 
two  brothers,  ever  in  company  hitherto,  parted  roads  at  this 
point ;  and,  except  on  holiday  visits  and  by  frequent  correspond- 
ence, did  not  again  live  together  ;  but  they  continued  in  a  true 
fraternal  attachment  while  life  lasted,  and  I  believe  never  had 
any  even  temporary  estrangement,  or  on  either  side  a  cause  for 
such.  The  family,  as  I  said,  was  now,  for  the  last  three  years, 
reduced  to  these  two  ;  the  rest  of  the  young  ones,  with  their 
laughter  and  their  sorrows,  all  gone.  The  parents  otherwise 
were  prosperous  in  outward  circumstances ;  the  Father's  position 
more  and  more  developing  itself  into  affluent  security,  an  agree- 
able circle  of  acquaintance,  and  a  certain  real  influence,  though 
of  a  peculiar  sort,  according  to  his  gifts  for  work  in  this  world. 

Sterling's  Tutor  at  Trinity  College  was  Julius  Hare,  now 
the  distinguished  Archdeacon  of  Lewes  : — who  soon  conceived 
a  great  esteem  for  him,  and  continued  ever  afterwards,  in  looser 
or  closer  connexion,  his  loved  and  loving  friend.  As  the  Bio- 
graphical and  Editorial  work  above  alluded  to  abundantly 
evinces.  Mr.  Hare  celebrates  the  wonderful  and  beautiful  gifts, 
the  sparkling  ingenuity,  ready  logic,  eloquent  utterance,  and 
noble  generosities  and  pieties  oi  his  pupil ; — records  in  parti- 
cular how  once,  on  a  sudden  alarm  o\  fire  in  some  neighbour- 


UNIVERSITIES  :  CAMBRIDGE.  29 

ing  College  edifice  while  his  lecture  was  proceeding,  all  hands 
rushed  out  to  help  ;  how  the  undergraduates  instantly  formed 
themselves  in  lines  from  the  fire  to  the  river,  and  in  swift  con- 
tinuance kept  passing  buckets  as  was  needful,  till  the  enemy 
was  visibly  fast  yielding,  — when  Mr.  Hare,  going  along  the 
line,  was  astonished  to  find  Sterling  at  the  river-end  of  it,  stand- 
ing up  to  his  waist  in  water,  deftly  dealing  with  the  buckets  as 
they  came  and  went.  You  in  the  river,  Sterling;  you  with  your 
coughs,  and  dangerous  tendencies  of  health  ! — "Somebody 
"  must  be  in  it,"  answered  Sterling;  "why  not  I,  as  well  as 
"  another  ?"  Sterling's  friends  may  remember  many  traits  of 
that  kind.  The  swiftest  in  all  things,  he  was  apt  to  be  found 
at  the  head  of  the  column,  whithersoever  the  march  might  be  ; 
if  towards  any  brunt  of  danger,  there  was  he  surest  to  be  at  the 
head  ;  and  of  himself  and  his  peculiar  risks  or  impediments 
he  was  negligent  at  all  times,  even  to  an  excessive  and  plainly 
unreasonable  degree. 

Mr.  Hare  justly  refuses  him  the  character  of  an  exact 
scholar,  or  technical  proficient  at  any  time  in  either  of  the 
ancient  literatures.  But  he  freely  read  in  Greek  and  Latin, 
as  in  various  modern  languages  ;  and  in  all  fields,  in  the 
classical  as  well,  his  lively  faculty  of  recognition  and'  assimi- 
lation had  given  him  large  booty  in  proportion  to  his  labour. 
One  cannot  under  any  circumstances  conceive  of  Sterling  as  a 
steady  dictionary  philologue,  historian,  or  archaeologist  ;  nor 
did  he  here,  nor  could  he  well,  attempt  that  course.  At  the 
same  time,  Greek  and  the  Greeks  being  here  before  him,  he 
could  not  fail  to  gather  somewhat  from  it,  to  take  some  hue 
and  shape  from  it.  Accordingly  there  is,  to  a  singular  extent, 
especially  in  his  early  writings,  a  certain  tinge  of  Grecism  and 
Heathen  Classicality  traceable  in  him ; — Classicality,  indeed, 
which  does  not  satisfy  one's  sense  as  real  or  truly  living,  but 
which  glitters  with  a  certain  genial,  if  perhaps  almost  meretri- 
cious \\vki-j apannisli  splendour, — greatly  distinguishable  from 
mere  gerundgrinding,  and  death  in  longs  and  shorts.  If  Classi- 
cality mean  the  practical  conception,  or  attempt  to  conceive, 
what  human  life  was  in  the  epoch  called  classical, — perhaps 
few  or  none  of  Sterling's  contemporaries  in  that  Cambridge 
establishment  carried  away  more  of  available  Classicality  than 
even  he. 


30  JOHN  STERLING. 

But  here,  as  in  his  former  schools,  his  studies  and  in- 
quiries, diligently  prosecuted  I  believe,  were  of  the  most  dis- 
cursive wide-flowing  character  ;  not  steadily  advancing  along 
beaten  roads  towards  College  honours,  but  pulsing  out  with 
impetuous  irregularity  now  on  this  tract,  now  on  that  towards 
whatever  spiritual  Delphi  might  promise  to  unfold  the  mystery 
of  this  world,  and  announce  to  him  what  was,  in  our  new  day, 
the  authentic  message  of  the  gods.  His  speculations,  readings, 
inferences,  glances  and  conclusions  were  doubtless  sufficiently 
encyclopedic  ;  his  grand  tutors  the  multifarious  set  'of  Books 
he  devoured.  And  perhaps, — as  is  the  singular  case  in  most 
schools  and  educational  establishments  of  this  unexampled  epoch, 
— it  was  not  the  express  set  of  arrangements  in  this  or  any 
extant  University  that  could  essentially  forward  him,  but  only 
the  implied  and  silent  ones  ;  less  in  the  prescribed  '  course  of 
study,'  which  seems  to  tend  nowhither,  than, — if  you  will  con- 
sider it, — in  the  generous  (not  ungenerous)  rebellion  against 
said  prescribed  course,  and  the  voluntary  spirit  of  endeavour 
and  adventure  excited  thereby,  does  help  lie  for  a  brave  youth 
in  such  places.  Curious  to  consider.  The  fagging,  the  illicit 
boating,  and  the  things  forbidden  by  the  schoolmaster, — these, 
I  often  notice  in  my  Eton  acquaintances,  are  the  things  that 
have  done  them  good  ;  these,  and  not  their  inconsiderable  or 
considerable  knowledge  of  the  Greek  accidence  almost  at  all ! 
What  is  Greek  accidence,  compared  to  Spartan  discipline,  if 
it  can  be  had  ?  That  latter  is  a  real  and  grand  attainment. 
Certainly,  if  rebellion  is  unfortunately  needful,  and  you  can 
rebel  in  a  generous  manner,  several  things  may  be  acquired  in 
that  operation, — rigorous  mutual  fidelity,  reticence,  steadfast- 
ness, mild  stoicism,  and  other  virtues  far  transcending  your 
Greek  accidence.  Nor  can  the  unwisest  '  prescribed  course  of 
study'  be  considered  quite  useless,  if  it  have  incited  you  to  try 
nobly  on  all  sides  for  a  course  of  your  own.  A  singular  condi- 
tion of  Schools  and  High-schools,  which  have  come  down,  in 
their  strange  old  clothes  and  'courses  of  study,'  from  the 
monkish  ages  into  this  highly  unmonkish  one ; — tragical  condi- 
tion, at  which  the  intelligent  observer  makes  deep  pause  ! 

One  benefit,  not  to  be  dissevered  from  the  most  obsolete 
University  still  frequented  by  young  ingenuous  living  souls,  is 
that  of  manifold  collision  and  communication  with  the  said 


UNIVERSITIES:  CAMBRIDGE.  31 

young  souls  ;  which,  to  every  one  of  these  coevals,  is  undoubt- 
edly the  most  important  branch  of  breeding  for  him.  In  this 
point,  as  the  learned  Huber  has  insisted,1  the  two  English 
Universities, — their  studies  otherwise  being  granted  to  be  nearly- 
useless,  and  even  ill  done  of  their  kind, — far  excel  all  other 
Universities  :  so  valuable  are  the  rules  of  human  behaviour 
which  from  of  old  have  tacitly  established  themselves  there  ;  so 
manful,  with  all  its  sad  drawbacks,  is  the  style  of  English  cha- 
racter, 'frank,  simple,  rugged  and  yet  courteous,'  which  has 
tacitly  but  imperatively  got  itself  sanctioned  and  prescribed 
there.  Such,  in  full  sight  of  Continental  and  other  Universi- 
ties, is  Huber's  opinion.  Alas,  the  question  of  University  Re- 
form goes  deep  at  present  ;  deep  as  the  world ; — and  the  real 
University  of  these  new  epochs  is  yet  a  great  way  from  us ! 
Another  judge  in  whom  I  have  confidence  declares  further, 
That,  of  these  two  Universities,  Cambridge  is  decidedly  the 
more  catholic  (not  R^man  catholic,  but  Human  catholic)  in  its 
tendencies  and  habitudes  ;  and  that  in  fact,  of  all  the  miserable 
Schools  and  High-schools  in  the  England  of  these  years,  he,  if  re- 
duced to  choose  from  them,  would  choose  Cambridge  as  a  place 
of  culture  for  the  young  idea.  So  that,  in  these  bad  circum- 
stances, Sterling  had  perhaps  rather  made  a  hit  than  otherwise? 

Sterling  at  Cambridge  had  undoubtedly  a  wide  and  rather 
genial  circle  of  comrades ;  and  could  not  fail  to  be  regarded  and 
beloved  by  many  of  them.  Their  life  seems  to  have  been  an 
ardently  speculating  and  talking  one ;  by  no  means  excessively 
restrained  within  limits  ;  and,  in  the  more  adventurous  heads 
like  Sterling's,  decidedly  tending  towards  the  latitudinarian  in 
most  things.  They  had  among  them  a  Debating  Society  called 
The  Union;  where  on  stated  evenings  was  much  logic,  and 
other  spiritual  fencing  and  ingenuous  collision, — probably  of  a 
really  superior  quality  in  that  kind  ;  for  not  a  few  of  the  then 
disputants  have  since  proved  themselves  men  of  parts,  and  at- 
tained distinction  in  the  intellectual  walks  of  life.  Frederic 
Maurice,  Richard  Trench,  John  Kemble,  Spedding,  Venables, 
Charles  Buller,  Richard  Milnes  and  others : — I  have  heard  that 
in  speaking  and  arguing,  Sterling  was  the  acknowledged  chief 
in  this  Union  Club;  and  that  'none  even  came  near  him, 
1  History  of  the  English  Universities.  (Translated  from  the  German.) 


32  JOHN  STERLING. 

except  the  late  Charles  Buller,'  whose  distinction  in  this  and 
higher  respects  was  also  already  notable. 

The  questions  agitated  seem  occasionally  to  have  touched 
on  the  political  department,  and  even  on  the  ecclesiastical.  I 
have  heard  one  trait  of  Sterling's  eloquence,  which  survived  on 
the  wings  of  grinning  rumour,  and  had  evidently  borne  upon 
Church  Conservatism  in  some  form  :  "  Have  they  not," — or 
perhaps  it  was,  Has  she  (the  Church)  not, — "  a  black  dragoon 
"  in  every  parish,  on  good  pay  and  rations,  horse-meat  and 
"  man's-meat,  to  patrol  and  battle  for  these  things?"  The 
'  black  dragoon,'  which  naturally  at  the  moment  ruffled  the 
general  young  imagination  into  stormy  laughter,  points  towards 
important  conclusions  in  respect  to  Sterling  at  this  time.  I 
conclude  he  had,  with  his  usual  alacrity  and  impetuous  daring, 
frankly  adopted  the  anti-superstitious  side  of  things ;  and  stood 
scornfully  prepared  to  repel  all  aggressions  or  pretensions  from 
the  opposite  quarter.  In  short,  that  he  was  already,  what  after- 
wards there  is  no  doubt  about  his  being,  at  all  points  a  Radical, 
as  the  name  or  nickname  then  went.  In  other  words,  a  young 
ardent  soul  looking  with  hope  and  joy  into  a  world  which  was 
infinitely  beautiful  to  him,  though  overhung  with  falsities  and 
foul  cobwebs  as  world  never  was  before  ;  overloaded,  over- 
clouded, to  the  zenith  and  the  nadir  of  it,  by  incredible  uncre- 
dited  traditions,  solemnly  sordid  hypocrisies,  and  beggarly  de- 
liriums old  and  new  ;  which  latter  class  of  objects  it  was  clearly 
the  part  of  every  noble  heart  to  expend  all  its  lightnings  and 
energies  in  burning-up  without  delay,  and  sweeping  into  their 
native  Chaos  out  of  such  a  Cosmos  as  this.  Which  process,  it 
did  not  then  seem  to  him  could  be  very  difficult;  or  attended 
with  much  other  than  heroic  joy,  and  enthusiasm  of  victory  or 
of  battle,  to  the  gallant  operator,  in  his  part  of  it.  This  was, 
with  modifications  such  as  might  be,  the  humour  and  creed  of 
College  Radicalism  five-and-twenty  years  ago.  Rather  horrible 
at  that  time  ;  seen  to  be  not  so  horrible  now,  at  least  to  have 
grown  very  universal,  and  to  need  no  concealment  now.  The 
natural  humour  and  attitude,  we  may  well  regret  to  say, — and 
honourable  not  dishonourable,  for  a  brave  young  soul  such  as 
Sterling's,  in  those  years  in  those  localities  ! 

I  do  not  find  that  Sterling  had,  at  that  stage,  adopted  the 
then  prevalent  Utilitarian  theory  of  human  things.  But  neither, 


A  PROFESSION.  33 

apparently,  had  he  rejected  it ;  still  less  did  he  yet  at  all  de- 
nounce it  with  the  damnatory  vehemence  we  were  used  to  in 
him  at  a  later  period.  Probably  he,  so  much  occupied  with  the 
negative  side  of  things,  had  not  yet  thought  seriously  of  any 
positive  basis  for  his  world  ;  or  asked  himself,  too  earnestly, 
What,  then,  is  the  noble  rule  of  living  for  a  man  ?  In  this 
world  so  eclipsed  and  scandalously  overhung  with  fable  and 
hypocrisy,  what  is  the  eternal  fact,  on  which  a  man  may  front 
the  Destinies  and  the  Immensities  ?  The  day  for  such  ques- 
tions, sure  enough  to  come  in  his  case,  was  still  but  coming. 
Sufficient  for  this  day  be  the  work  thereof;  that  of  blasting  into 
merited  annihilation  the  innumerable  and  immeasurable  recog- 
nised deliriums,  and  extirpating  or  coercing  to  the  due  pitch 
those  legions  of  'black  dragoons,'  of  all  varieties  and  purposes, 
who  patrol,  with  horse-meat  and  man's-meat,  this  afflicted  earth, 
so  hugely  to  the  detriment  of  it. 

Sterling,  it  appears,  after  above  a  year  of  Trinity  College, 
followed  his  friend  Maurice  into  Trinity  Hall,  with  the  intention 
of  taking  a  degree  in  Law  ;  which  intention,  like  many  others 
with  him,  came  to  nothing;  and  in  1827  he  left  Trinity  Hall 
and  Cambridge  altogether;  here  ending,  after  two  years,  his 
brief  University  life. 


CHAPTER  V. 

A  PROFESSION. 

HERE,  then,  is  a  young  soul,  brought  to  the  years  of  legal 
majority,  furnished  from  his  training-schools  with  such  and  such 
shining  capabilities,  and  ushered  on  the  scene  of  things,  to  in- 
quire practically,  What  he  will  do  there  ?  Piety  is  in  the  man, 
noble  human  valour,  bright  intelligence,  ardent  proud  veracity ; 
light  and  fire,  in  none  of  their  many  senses,  wanting  for  him, 
but  abundantly  bestowed :  a  kingly  kind  of  man; — whose  'king- 
dom,' however,  in  this  bewildered  place  and  epoch  of  the  world 
will  probably  be  difficult  to  find  and  conquer  ! 

For,  alas,  the  world,  as  we  said,  already  stands  convicted 
to  this  young  soul  of  being  an  untrue,  unblessed  world ;  its  high 
dignitaries  many  of  them  phantasms  and  players'-masks  ;  its 

D 


34  JOHN  STERLING. 

worthships  and  worships  unworshipful :  from  Dan  to  Beersheba, 
a  mad  world,  my  masters.  And  surely  we  may  say,  and  none 
will  now  gainsay,  this  his  idea  of  the  world  at  that  epoch  was 
nearer  to  the  fact  than  at  most  other  epochs  it  has  been.  Truly, 
in  all  times  and  places,  the  young  ardent  soul  that  enters  on  this 
world  with  heroic  purpose,  with  veracious  insight,  and  the  yet 
unclouded  'inspiration  of  the  Almighty'  which  has  given  us  our 
intelligence,  will  find  this  world  a  very  mad  one  :  why  else  is 
he,  with  his  little  outfit  of  heroisms  and  inspirations,  come  hither 
into  it,  except  to  make  it  diligently  a  little  saner?  Of  him  there 
would  have  been  no  need,  had  it  been  quite  sane.  This  is  true ; 
this  will,  in  all  centuries  and  countries,  be  true. 

And  yet  perhaps  of  no  time  or  country,  for  the  last  two 
thousand  years,  was  it  so  true  as  here  in  this  waste-weltering 
epoch  of  Sterling's  and  ours.  A  world  all  rocking  and  plung- 
ing, like  that  old  Roman  one  when  the  measure  of  its  iniquities 
was  full ;  the  abysses,  and  subterranean  and  supernal  deluges, 
plainly  broken  loose ;  in  the  wild  dim-lighted  chaos  all  stars  of 
Heaven  gone  out.  No  star  of  Heaven  visible,  hardly  now  to 
any  man ;  the  pestiferous  fogs,  and  foul  exhalations  grown  con- 
tinual, have,  except  on  the  highest  mountain-tops,  blotted-out 
all  stars  :  will-o'-wisps,  of  various  course  and  colour,  take  the 
place  of  stars.  Over  the  wild-surging  chaos,  in  the  leaden  air, 
are  only  sudden  glares  of  revolutionary  lightning ;  then  mere 
darkness,  with  philanthropistic  phosphorescences,  empty  mete- 
oric lights ;  here  and  there  an  ecclesiastical  luminary  still  hover- 
ing, hanging  on  to  its  old  quaking  fixtures,  pretending  still  to 
be  a  Moon  or  Sun, — though  visibly  it  is  but  a  Chinese  Lantern 
made  of  paper  mainly,  with  candle-end  foully  dying  in  the  heart 
of  it.  Surely  as  mad  a  world  as  you  could  wish  ! 

If  you  want  to  make  sudden  fortunes  in  it,  and  achieve  the 
temporary  hallelujah  of  flunkies  for  yourself,  renouncing  the 
perennial  esteem  of  wise  men ;  if  you  can  believe  that  the  chief 
end  of  man  is  to  collect  about  him  a  bigger  heap  of  gold  than 
ever  before,  in  a  shorter  time  than  ever  before,  you  will  find  it 
a  most  handy  and  everyway  furthersome,  blessed  and  felicitous 
world.  But  for  any  other  human  aim,  I  think  you  will  find  it 
not  furthersome.  If  you  in  any  way  ask  practically,  How  a 
noble  life  is  to  be  led  in  it  ?  you  will  be  luckier  than  Sterling 
or  I  if  you  get  any  credible  answer,  or  find  any  made  road 


A  PROFESSION.  35 

whatever.  Alas,  it  is  even  so.  Your  heart's  question,  if  it  be  of 
that  sort,  most  things  and  persons  will  answer  with  a  "  Non- 
sense !  Noble  life  is  in  Drury  Lane,  and  wears  yellow  boots. 
You  fool,  compose  yourself  to  your  pudding!" — Surely,  in  these 
times,  if  ever  in  any,  the  young  heroic  soul  entering  on  life,  so 
opulent,  full  of  sunny  hope,  of  noble  valour  and  divine  inten- 
tion, is  tragical  as  well  as  beautiful  to  us. 

Of  the  three  learned  Professions  none  offered  any  likelihood 
for  Sterling.  From  the  Church  his  notions  of  the  '  black  dra- 
goon,' had  there  been  no  other  obstacle,  were  sufficient  to 
exclude  him.  Law  he  had  just  renounced,  his  own  Radical 
philosophies  disheartening  him,  in  face  of  the  ponderous  im- 
pediments, continual  uphill  struggles  and  formidable  toils  in- 
herent in  such  a  pursuit :  with  Medicine  he  had  never  been  in 
any  contiguity,  that  he  should  dream  of  it  as  a  course  for  him. 
Clearly  enough  the  professions  were  unsuitable  ;  they  to  him, 
he  to  them.  Professions,  built  so  largely  on  speciosity  instead 
of  performance ;  clogged,  in  this  bad  epoch,  and  defaced  under 
such  suspicions  of  fatal  imposture,  were  hateful  not  lovable  to 
the  young  radical  soul,  scornful  of  gross  profit,  and  intent  on 
ideals  and  human  noblenesses.  Again,  the  professions,  were 
they  never  so  perfect  and  veracious,  will  require  slow  steady 
pulling,  to  which  this  individual  young  radical,  with  his  swift, 
far-darting  brilliances,  and  nomadic  desultory  ways,  is  of  all 
men  the  most  averse  and  unfitted.  No  profession  could,  in  any 
case,  have  well  gained  the  early  love  of  Sterling.  And  perhaps 
withal  the  most  tragic  element  of  his  life  is  even  this,  That  there 
now  was  none  to  which  he  could  fitly,  by  those  wiser  than  him- 
self, have  been  bound  and  constrained,  that  he  might  learn  to 
love  it.  So  swift,  light-limbed  and  fiery  an  Arab  courser  ought, 
for  all  manner  of  reasons,  to  have  been  trained  to  saddle  and 
harness.  Roaming  at  full  gallop  over  the  heaths, — especially 
when  your  heath  was  London,  and  English  and  European  life, 
in  the  nineteenth  century, — he  suffered  much,  and  did  com- 
paratively little.  I  have  known  few  creatures  whom  it  was  more 
wasteful  to  send  forth  with  the  bridle  thrown  up,  and  to  set  to 
steeple-hunting  instead  of  running  on  highways  !  But  it  is  the 
lot  of  many  such,  in  this  dislocated  time, — Heaven  mend  it !  In 
a  better  time  there  will  be  other  '  professions'  than  those  three 


36  JOHN  STERLING. 

extremely  cramp,  confused  and  indeed  almost  obsolete  ones  : 
professions,  if  possible,  that  are  true,  and  do  not  require  you  at 
the  threshold  to  constitute  yourself  an  impostor.  Human  asso- 
ciation,— which  will  mean  discipline,  vigorous  wise  subordination 
and  coordination, — is  so  unspeakably  important.  Professions, 
'  regimented  human  pursuits,'  how  many  of  honourable  and 
manful  might  be  possible  for  men  ;  and  which  should  not,  in 
their  results  to  society,  need  to  stumble  along,  in  such  an  un- 
wieldy futile  manner,  with  legs  swollen  into  such  enormous 
elephantiasis  and  no  go  at  all  in  them  !  Men  will  one  day  think 
of  the  force  they  squander  in  every  generation,  and  the  fatal 
damage  they  encounter,  by  this  neglect. 

The  career  likeliest  for  Sterling,  in  his  and  the  world's  cir- 
cumstances, would  have  been  what  is  called  public  life  :  some 
secretarial,  diplomatic  or  other  official  training,  to  issue  if  pos- 
sible in  Parliament  as  the  true  field  for  him.  And  here,  beyond 
question,  had  the  gross  material  conditions  been  allowed,  his 
spiritual  capabilities  were  first-rate.  In  any  arena  where  elo- 
quence and  argument  was  the  point,  this  man  was  calculated  to 
have  borne  the  bell  from  all  competitors.  In  lucid  ingenious 
talk  and  logic,  in  all  manner  of  brilliant  utterance  and  tongue- 
fence,  I  have  hardly  known  his  fellow.  So  ready  lay  his  store  of 
knowledge  round  him,  so  perfect  was  his  ready  utterance  of  the 
same, — in  coruscating  wit,  in  jocund  drollery,  in  compact  articu- 
lated clearness  or  high  poignant  emphasis,  as  the  case  required, 
— he  was  a  match  for  any  man  in  argument  before  a  crowd  of 
men.  One  of  the  most  supple-wristed,  dextrous,  graceful  and 
successful  fencers  in  that  kind.  A  man,  as  Mr.  Hare  has  said, 
'  able  to  argue  with  four  or  five  at  once ;'  could  do  the  parrying 
all  round,  in  a  succession  swift  as  light,  and  plant  his  hits 
wherever  a  chance  offered.  In  Parliament,  such  a  soul  put 
into  a  body  of  the  due  toughness  might  have  carried  it  far.  If 
ours  is  to  be  called,  as  I  hear  some  call  it,  the  Talking  Era, 
Sterling  of  all  men  had  the  talent  to  excel  in  it. 

Probably  it  was  with  some  vague  view  towards  chances  in 
this  direction  that  Sterling's  first  engagement  was  entered  upon ; 
a  brief  connexion  as  Secretary  to  some  Club  or  Association 
into  which  certain  public  men,  of  the  reforming  sort,  Mr.  Craw- 
ford (the  Oriental  Diplomatist  and  Writer),  Mr.  Kirkman  Fin- 


A  PROFESSION.  37 

lay  (then  Member  for  Glasgow),  and  other  political  notabilities 
had  now  formed  themselves,- — with  what  specific  objects  I  do 
not  know,  nor  with  what  result  if  any.  I  have  heard  vaguely, 
it  was  '  to  open  the  trade  to  India.'  Of  course  they  intended  to 
stir-up  the  public  mind  into  cooperation,  whatever  their  goal  or 
object  was  :  Mr.  Crawford,  an  intimate  in  the  Sterling  house- 
hold, recognised  the  fine  literary  gift  of  John;  and  might  think 
it  a  lucky  hit  that  he  had  caught  such  a  Secretary  for  three 
hundred  pounds  a  year.  That  was  the  salary  agreed  upon ;  and 
for  some  months  actually  worked  for  and  paid  ;  Sterling  be- 
coming for  the  time  an  intimate  and  almost  an  inmate  in  Mr. 
Crawford's  circle,  doubtless  not  without  results  to  himself  be- 
yond the  secretarial  work  and  pounds  sterling :  so  much  is  cer- 
tain. But  neither  the  Secretaryship  nor  the  Association  itself 
had  any  continuance;  nor  can  I  now  learn  accurately  more  of  it 
than  what  is  here  stated ; — in  which  vague  state  it  must  vanish 
from  Sterling's  history  again,  as  it  in  great  measure  did  from 
his  life.  From  himself  in  after-years  I  never  heard  mention  of 
it  ;  nor  were  his  pursuits  connected  afterwards  with  those  of 
Mr.  Crawford,  though  the  mutual  goodwill  continued  unbroken. 
In  fact,  however  splendid  and  indubitable  Sterling's  quali- 
fications for  a  parliamentary  life,  there  was  that  in  him  withal 
which  flatly  put  a  negative  en  any  such  project.  He  had  not 
the  slow  steady-pulling  diligence  which  is  indispensable  in  that, 
as  in  all  important  pursuits  and  strenuous  human  competitions 
whatsoever.  In  every  sense,  his  momentum  depended  on  velo- 
city of  stroke,  rather  than  on  weight  of  metal ;  "  beautifulest 
sheet. -lightning,"  as  I  often  said,  "not  to  be  condensed  into 
thunderbolts."  Add  to  this, — what  indeed  is  perhaps  but  the 
same  phenomenon  in  another  form, — his  bodily  frame  was  thin, 
excitable,  already  manifesting  pulmonary  symptoms  ;  a  body 
which  the  tear  and  wear  of  Parliament  would  infallibly  in  few 
months  have  wrecked  and  ended.  By  this  path  there  was 
clearly  no  mounting.  The  far-darting,  restlessly  coruscating 
soul,  equipt  beyond  all  others  to  shine  in  the  Talking  Era,  and 
lead  National  Palavers  with  their  spolia  opima  captive,  is  im- 
prisoned in  a  fragile  hectic  body  which  quite  forbids  the  adven- 
ture. '  Es  ist  dafiir  gesorgt, '  says  Goethe,  '  Provision  has  been 
made  that  the  trees  do  not  grow  into  the  sky  ;' — means  are 
always  there  to  stop  them  short  of  the  sky. 


38  JOHN  STERLING. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LITERATURE  :   THE  ATHENAEUM. 

OF  all  forms  of  public  life,  in  the  Talking  Era,  it  was  clear 
that  only  one  completely  suited  Sterling, — the  anarchic,  noma- 
dic, entirely  aerial  and  unconditional  one,  called  Literature.  To 
this  all  his  tendencies,  and  fine  gifts  positive  and  negative, 
were  evidently  pointing  ;  and  here,  after  such  brief  attempting 
or  thoughts  to  attempt  at  other  posts,  he  already  in  this  same 
year  arrives.  As  many  do,  and  ever  more  must  do,  in  these 
our  years  and  times.  This  is  the  chaotic  haven  of  so  many 
frustrate  activities  ;  where  all  manner  of  good  gifts  go  up  in 
far-seen  smoke  or  conflagration  ;  and  whole  fleets,  that  might 
have  been  war-fleets  to  conquer  kingdoms,  are  consumed  (too 
truly,  often),  amid  'fame'  enough,  and  the  admiring  shouts  of 
the  vulgar,  which  is  always  fond  to  see  fire  going  on.  The  true 
Canaan  and  Mount  Zion  of  a  Talking  Era  must  ever  be  Litera- 
ture :  the  extraneous,  miscellaneous,  self-elected,  indescribable 
Parliamentum,  or  Talking  Apparatus,  which  talks  by  books  and 
printed  papers. 

A  literary  Newspaper  called  The  Athenceutn,  the  same  which 
still  subsists,  had  been  founded  in  those  years  by  Mr.  Bucking- 
ham ;  James  Silk  Buckingham,  who  has  since  continued  notable 
under  various  figures.  Mr.  Buckingham's  Athenceutn  had  not 
as  yet  got  into  a  flourishing  condition  ;  and  he  was  willing  to 
sell  the  copyright  of  it  for  a  consideration.  Perhaps  Sterling 
and  old  Cambridge  friends  of  his  had  been  already  writing  for 
it.  At  all  events,  Sterling,  who  had  already  privately  begun 
writing  a  Novel,  and  was  clearly  looking  towards  Literature, 
perceived  that  his  gifted  Cambridge  friend,  Frederic  Maurice, 
was  now  also  at  large  in  a  somewhat  similar  situation ;  and  that 
here  was  an  opening  for  both  of  them,  and  for  other  gifted 
friends.  The  copyright  was  purchased  for  I  know  not  what 
sum,  nor  with  whose  money,  but  guess  it  may  have  been  Ster- 
ling's, and  no  great  sum ; — and  so,  under  free  auspices,  them- 
selves their  own  captains,  Maurice  and  he  spread  sail  for  this 
new  voyage  of  adventure  into  all  the  world.  It  was  about  the 
end  of  1828  that  readers  of  periodical  literature,  and  quidnuncs 
in  those  departments,  began  to  report  the  appearance,  in  a  Paper 


LITERATURE  :  THE  ATHENAEUM.  39 

called  the  Athenceum,  of  writings  showing  a  superior  brilliancy, 
and  height  of  aim  ;  one  or  perhaps  two  slight  specimens  of 
which  came  into  my  own  hands,  in  my  remote  corner,  about 
that  time,  and  were  duly  recognised  by  me,  while  the  authors 
were  still  far  off  and  hidden  behind  deep  veils. 

Some  of  Sterling's  best  Papers  from  the  AtJieiitzuni  have 
been  published  by  Archdeacon  Hare  :  first-fruits  by  a  young 
man  of  twenty-two  ;  crude,  imperfect,  yet  singularly  beautiful 
and  attractive ;  which  will  still  testify  what  high  literary  promise 
lay  in  him.  The  ruddiest  glow  of  young  enthusiasm,  of  noble 
incipient  spiritual  manhood  reigns  over  them  ;  once  more  a  di- 
vine Universe  unveiling  itself  in  gloom  and  splendour,  in  auroral 
fire-light  and  many-tinted  shadow,  full  of  hope  and  full  of  awe, 
to  a  young  melodious  pious  heart  just  arrived  upon  it.  Often 
enough  the  delineation  has  a  certain  flowing  completeness,  not 
to  be  expected  from  so  young  an  artist ;  here  and  there  is  a 
decided  felicity  of  insight;  everywhere  the  point  of  view  adopted 
is  a  high  and  noble  one,  and  the  result  worked-out  a  result  to  be 
sympathised  with,  and  accepted  so  far  as  it  will  go.  Good  read- 
ing still,  those  Papers,  for  the  less-furnished  mind, — thrice-ex- 
cellent reading  compared  with  what  is  usually  going.  For  the 
rest,  a  grand  melancholy  is  the  prevailing  impression  they  leave ; 
— partly  as  if,  while  the  surface  was  so  blooming  and  opulent, 
the  heart  of  them  was  still  vacant,  sad  and  cold.  Here  is  a 
beautiful  mirage,  in  the  dry  wilderness ;  but  you  cannot  quench 
your  thirst  there  !  The  writer's  heart  is  indeed  still  too  vacant, 
except  of  beautiful  shadows  and  reflexes  and  resonances  ;  and 
is  far  from  joyful,  though  it  wears  commonly  a  smile. 

In  some  of  the  Greek  delineations  (The  Lycian  Painter,  for 
example),  we  have  already  noticed  a  strange  opulence  of  splen- 
dour, character i sable  as  half-legitimate,  half-meretricious, — a 
splendour  hovering  between  the  raffaelesque  and  the  japannish. 
What  other  things  Sterling  wrote  there,  I  never  knew;  nor  would 
he  in  any  mood,  in  those  later  days,  have  told  you,  had  you 
asked.  This  period  of  his  life  he  always  rather  accounted,  as 
the  Arabs  do  the  idolatrous  times  before  Mahomet's  advent,  the 
'  period  of  darkness.' 


40  JOHN  STERLING. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

REGENT  STREET. 

ON  the  commercial  side  the  Athenaum  still  lacked  success; 
nor  was  like  to  find  it  under  the  highly  uncommercial  manage- 
ment it  had  now  got  into.  This,  by  and  by,  began  to  be  a  serious 
consideration.  For  money  is  the  sinews  of  Periodical  Literature 
almost  as  much  as  of  war  itself ;  without  money,  and  under  a 
constant  drain  of  loss,  Periodical  Literature  is  one  of  the  things 
that  cannot  be  carried  on.  In  no  long  time  Sterling  began  to 
be  practically  sensible  of  this  truth,  and  that  an  unpleasant  re- 
solution in  accordance  with  it  would  be  necessary.  By  him  also, 
after  a  while,  the  Athenezum  was  transferred  to  other  hands, 
better  fitted  in  that  respect ;  and  under  these  it  did  take  vigorous 
root,  and  still  bears  fruit  according  to  its  kind. 

For  the  present,  it  brought  him  into  the  thick  of  London 
Literature,  especially  of  young  London  Literature  and  specula- 
tion ;  in  which  turbid  exciting  element  he  swam  and  revelled, 
nothing  loath,  for  certain  months  longer, — a  period  short  of 
two  years  in  all.  He  had  lodgings  in  Regent  Street :  his  Father's 
house,  now  a  flourishing  and  stirring  establishment,  in  South 
Place,  Knightsbridge,  where,  under  the  warmth  of  increasing 
revenue  and  success,  miscellaneous  cheerful  socialities  and 
abundant  speculations,  chiefly  political  (and  not  John's  kind, 
but  that  of  the  Times  Newspaper  and  the  Clubs),  were  rife,  he 
could  visit  daily,  and  yet  be  master  of  his  own  studies  and 
pursuits.  Maurice,  Trench,  John  Mill,  Charles  Buller  :  these, 
and  some  few  others,  among  a  wide  circle  of  a  transitory  phan- 
tasmal character,  whom  he  speedily  forgot  and  cared  not  to  re- 
member, were  much  about  him  ;  with  these  he  in  all  ways 
employed'  and  disported  himself:  a  first  favourite  with  them  all. 

No  pleasanter  companion,  I  suppose,  had  any  of  them.  So 
frank,  open,  guileless,  fearless,  a  brother  to  all  worthy  souls 
whatsoever.  Come  when  you  might,  here  is  he  open-hearted, 
rich  in  cheerful  fancies,  in  grave  logic,  in  all  kinds  of  bright 
activity.  If  perceptibly  or  imperceptibly  there  is  a  touch  of 
ostentation  in  him,  blame  it  not ;  it  is  so  innocent,  so  good  and 
childlike.  He  is  still  fonder  of  jingling  publicly,  and  spreading 


REGENT  STREET.  41 

on  the  table,  your  big  purse  of  opulences  than  his  own.  Abrupt 
too  he  is,  cares  little  for  big-wigs  and  garnitures  ;  perhaps  laughs 
more  than  the  real  fun  he  has  would  order  ;  but  of  arrogance 
there  is  no  vestige,  of  insincerity  or  of  ill-nature  none.  These 
must  have  been  pleasant  evenings  in  Regent  Street,  when  the 
circle  chanced  to  be  well  adjusted  there.  At  other  times,  Phi- 
listines would  enter,  what  we  call  bores,  dullards,  Children  of 
Darkness  ;  and  then, — except  in  a  hunt  of  dullards,  and  a  bore- 
baiting,  which  might  be  permissible, — the  evening  was  dark. 
Sterling,  of  course,  had  innumerable  cares  withal;  and  was  toil- 
ing like  a  slave  ;  his  very  recreations  almost  a  kind  of  work.  An 
enormous  activity  was  in  the  man  ; — sufficient,  in  a  body  that 
could  have  held  it  without  breaking,  to  have  gone  far,  even 
under  the  unstable  guidance  it  was  like  to  have  ! 

Thus,  too,  an  extensive,  very  variegated  circle  of  connexions 
was  forming  round  him.  Besides  his  Athenaum  work,  and  even- 
ings in  Regent  Street  and  elsewhere,  he  makes  visits  to  coun- 
try-houses, the  Bullers'  and  others  ;  converses  with  established 
gentlemen,  with  honourable  women  not  a  few ;  is  gay  and  wel- 
come with  the  young  of  his  own  age  ;  knows  also  religious,  witty, 
and  other  distinguished  ladies,  and  is  admiringly  known  by  them. 
On  the  whole,  he  is  already  locomotive  ;  visits  hither  and  thither 
in  a  very  rapid  flying  manner.  Thus  I  find  he  had  made  one 
flying  visit  to  the  Cumberland  Lake-region  in  1828,  and  got 
sight  of  Wordsworth  ;  and  in  the  same  year  another  flying  one 
to  Paris,  and  seen  with  no  undue  enthusiasm  the  Saint-Simon- 
ian  Portent  just  beginning  to  preach  for  itself,  and  France  in 
general  simmering  under  a  scum  of  impieties,  levities,  Saint- 
Simonisms,  and  frothy  fantasticalities  of  all  kinds,  towards  the 
boiling-over  which  soon  made  the  Three  Days  of  July  famous. 
But  by  far  the  most  important  foreign  home  he  visited  was  that 
of  Coleridge  on  the  Hill  of  Highgate, — if  it  were  not  rather  a 
foreign  shrine  and  Dodona-Oracle,  as  he  then  reckoned, — to 
which  (onwards  from  1828,  as  would  appear)  he  was  already 
an  assiduous  pilgrim.  Concerning  whom,  and  Sterling's  all- 
important  connexion  with  him,  there  will  be  much  to  say  anon. 

Here,  from  this  period,  is  a  Letter  of  Sterling's,  which  the 
glimpses  it  affords  of  bright  scenes  and  figures  now  sunk,  so 
many  of  them,  sorrowfully  to  the  realm  of  shadows,  will  render 
interesting  to  some  of  my  readers.  To  me  on  the  mere  Letter, 


42  JOHN  STERLING. 

not  on  its  contents  alone,  there  is  accidentally  a  kind  of  fateful 
stamp.  A  few  months  after  Charles  Buller's  death,  while  his 
loss  was  mourned  by  many  hearts,  and  to  his  poor  Mother  all 
light  except  what  hung  upon  his  memory  had  gone-out  in  the 
world,  a  certain  delicate  and  friendly  hand,  hoping  to  give  the 
poor  bereaved  lady  a  good  moment,  sought  out  this  Letter  of 
Sterling's,  one  morning,  and  called,  with  intent  to  read  it  to 
her  :  —  alas,  the  poor  lady  had  herself  fallen  suddenly  into  the 
languors  of  death,  help  of  another  grander  sort  now  close  at 
hand  ;  and  to  her  this  Letter  was  never  read  !  — 

On  '  Fanny  Kemble,'  it  appears,  there  is  an  Essay  by  Ster- 
ling in  the  Athenceum  of  this  year:  'i6th  December  1829.' 
Very  laudatory,  I  conclude.  He  much  admired  her  genius,  nay 
was  thought  at  one  time  to  be  vaguely  on  the  edge  of  still  more 
chivalrous  feelings.  As  the  Letter  itself  may  perhaps  indicate. 


'  To  Anthony  Sterling,  Esq.,  i^th  Regiment,  Dublin. 

'  Knightsbridge,  loth  Nov.  1829. 

'  MY  DEAR  ANTHONY,  —  Here  in  the  Capital  of  England  and 
'  of  Europe,  there  is  less,  so  far  as  I  hear,  of  movement  and 
'  variety  than  in  your  provincial  Dublin,  or  among  the  Wicklow 
'  Mountains.  We  have  the  old  prospect  of  bricks  and  smoke, 
'  the  old  crowd  of  busy  stupid  faces,  the  old  occupations,  the  old 
'  sleepy  amusements  ;  and  the  latest  news  that  reaches  us  daily 
'  has  an  air  of  tiresome,  doting  antiquity.  The  world  has  no- 
'  thing  for  it  but  to  exclaim  with  Faust,  "  Give  me  my  youth 
'  again."  And  as  for  me,  my  month  of  Cornish  amusement  is 
'  over  ;  and  I  must  tie  myself  to  my  old  employments.  I  have 
'  not  much  to  tell  you  about  these  ;  but  perhaps  you  may  like 
'  to  hear  of  my  expedition  to  the  West. 

'  I  wrote  to  Polvellan  (Mr.  Buller's)  to  announce  the  day  on 
'  which  I  intended  to  be  there,  so  shortly  before  setting-out,  that 
'  there  was  no  time  to  receive  an  answer  ;  and  when  I  reached 
'  Devonport,  which  is  fifteen  or  sixteen  miles  from  my  place  of 
'  destination,  I  found  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Buller,  saying  that  she 
'  was  coming  in  two  days  to  a  Ball  at  Plymouth,  and  if  I  chose 
'  to  stay  in  the  meanwhile  and  look  about  me,  she  would  take 
'  me  back  with  her.  She  added  an  introduction  to  a  relation  of 
'  her  husband's,  a  certain  Captain  Buller  of  the  Rifles,  who  was 
'  with  the  Depot  there,  —  a  pleasant  person,  who  I  believe  had 


REGENT  STREET.  43 

1  been  acquainted  with  Charlotte,1  or  at  least  had  seen  her. 
'  Under  his  superintendence' — 

'  On  leaving  Devonport  with  Mrs.  Buller,  I  went  some  of 
'  the  way  by  water,  up  the  harbour  and  river  ;  and  the  prospects 
1  are  certainly  very  beautiful ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  large  ships, 
'  which  I  admire  almost  as  much  as  you,  though  without  know- 
'  ing  so  much  about  them.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  fine  scenery 
'  all  along  the  road  to  Looe  ;  and  the  House  itself,  a  very  un- 
'  pretending  Gothic  cottage,  stands  beautifully  among  trees, 
'  hills  and  water,  with  the  sea  at  the  distance  of  a  quarter  of  a 
'  mile. 

'And  here,  among  pleasant,  good-natured,  well-informed, 
'  and  clever  people,  I  spent  an  idle  month.  I  dined  at  one  or 
'  two  Corporation  dinners  ;  spent  a  few  days  at  the  old  Mansion 
'  of  Mr.  Buller  of  Morval,  the  patron  of  West  Looe  ;  and  during 
'  the  rest  of  the  time,  read,  wrote,  played  chess,  lounged,  and 
'  ate  red  mullet  (he  who  has  not  done  this  has  not  begun  to 
'  live)  ;  talked  of  cookery  to  the  philosophers,  and  of  meta- 
'  physics  to  Mrs.  Buller;  and  altogether  cultivated  indolence, 
'  and  developed  the  faculty  of  nonsense  with  considerable  plea- 
'  sure  and  unexampled  success.  Charles  Buller  you  know  :  he 
'  has  just  come  to  town,  but  I  have  not  yet  seen  him.  Arthur, 
'  his  younger  brother,  I  take  to  be  one  of  the  handsomest  men 
'  in  England ;  and  he  too  has  considerable  talent.  Mr.  Buller 
'  the  father  is  rather  a  clever  man  of  sense,  and  particularly 
'  good-natured  and  gentlemanly  ;  and  his  wife,  who  was  a  re- 
'  nowned  beauty  and  queen  of  Calcutta,  has  still  many  striking 
'  and  delicate  traces  of  what  she  was.  Her  conversation  is  more 
'  brilliant  and  pleasant  than  that  of  any  one  I  know ;  and,  at 
'  all  events,  I  am  bound  to  admire  her  for  the  kindness  with 
'  which  she  patronises  me.  I  hope  that,  some  day  or  other,  you 
'  may  be  acquainted  with  her. 

'  I  believe  I  have  seen  no  one  in  London  about  whom  you 
'  would  care  to  hear, — unless  the  fame  of  Fanny  Kemble  has 
'  passed  the  Channel,  and  astonished  the  Irish  Barbarians  in 
'  the  midst  of  their  bloody-minded  politics.  Young  Kemble, 
'  whom  you  have  seen,  is  in  Germany  :  but  I  have  the  happi- 
'  ness  of  being  also  acquainted  with  his  sister,  the  divine  Fanny ; 
'  and  I  have  seen  her  twice  on  the  stage,  and  three  or  four 
1  Mrs.  Anthony  Sterling,  very  lately  Miss  Charlotte  Baird. 


44  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  times  in  private,  since  my  return  from  Cornwall.  I  had  seen 
'  some  beautiful  verses  of  hers,  long  before  she  was  an  actress ; 
'  and  her  conversation  is  full  of  spirit  and  talent.  She  never 
'  was  taught  to  act  at  all ;  and  though  there  are  many  faults  in 
'  her  performance  of  Juliet,  there  is  more  power  than  in  any 
'  female  playing  I  ever  saw,  except  Pasta's  Medea.  She  is  not 
'  handsome,  rather  short,  and  by  no  means  delicately  formed  ; 
'  but  her  face  is  marked,  and  the  eyes  are  brilliant,  dark,  and 
'  full  of  character.  She  has  far  more  ability  than  she  ever  can 
'  display  on  the  stage  ;  but  I  have  no  doubt  that,  by  practice 
'  and  self-culture,  she  will  be  a  far  finer  actress  at  least  than 
'  anyone  since  Mrs.  Siddons.  I  was  at  Charles  Kemble's  a  few 
'  evenings  ago,  when  a  drawing  of  Miss  Kemble,  by  Sir  Thomas 
'  Lawrence,  was  brought  in  ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  you  will 
'  shortly  see,  even  in  Dublin,  an  engraving  of  her  from  it,  very 
'  unlike  the  caricatures  that  have  hitherto  appeared.  I  hate  the 
'  stage  ;  and  but  for  her,  should  very  likely  never  have  gone  to 
'  a  theatre  again.  Even  as  it  is,  the  annoyance  is  much  more 
'  than  the  pleasure  ;  but  I  suppose  I  must  go  to  see  her  in  every 
'  character  in  which  she  acts.  If  Charlotte  cares  for  plays,  let 
'  me  know,  and  I  will  write  in  more  detail  about  this  new  Mel- 
'  pomene.  I  fear  there  are  very  few  subjects  on  which  I  can  say 
'  anything  that  will  in  the  least  interest  her. — Ever  affection- 
'  ately  yours,  J.  STERLING.' 

Sterling  and  his  circle,  as  their  ardent  speculation  and  acti- 
vity fermented  along,  were  in  all  things  clear  for  progress, 
liberalism  ;  their  politics,  and  view  of  the  Universe,  decisively 
of  the  Radical  sort.  As  indeed  that  of  England  then' was,  more 
than  ever  ;  the  crust  of  old  hidebound  Toryism  being  now  openly 
cracking  towards  some  incurable  disruption,  which  accordingly 
ensued  as  the  Reform  Bill  before  long.  The  Reform  Bill  already 
hung  in  the  wind.  Old  hidebound  Toryism,  long  recognised  by 
all  the  world,  and  now  at  last  obliged  to  recognise  its  very  self, 
for  an  overgrown  Imposture,  supporting  itself  not  by  human 
reason,  but  by  flunky  blustering  and  brazen  lying,  superadded 
to  mere  brute  force,  could  be  no  creed  for  young  Sterling  and 
his  friends.  In  all  things  he  and  they  were  liberals,  and,  as  was 
natural  at  this  stage,  democrats  ;  contemplating  root-and-branch 
innovation  by  aid  of  the  hustings  and  ballot-box.  Hustings  and 


REGENT  STREET.  45 

ballot-box  had  speedily  to  vanish  out  of  Sterling's  thoughts  :  but 
the  character  of  root-and-branch  innovator,  essentially  of  '  Ra- 
dical Reformer,'  was  indelible  with  him,  and  under  all  forms 
could  be  traced  as  his  character  through  life. 

For  the  present,  his  and  those  young  people's  aim  was  :  By 
democracy,  or  what  means  there  are,  be  all  impostures  put 
down.  Speedy  end  to  Superstition, — a  gentle  one  if  you  can 
contrive  it,  but  an  end.  What  can  it  profit  any  mortal  to  adopt 
locutions  and  imaginations  which  do  not  correspond  to  fact ; 
which  no  sane  mortal  can  deliberately  adopt  in  his  soul  as  true ; 
which  the  most  orthodox  of  mortals  can  only,  and  this  after  in- 
finite essentially  impious  effort  to  put-out  the  eyes  of  his  mind, 
persuade  himself  to  '  believe  that  he  believes'  ?  Away  with  it ; 
in  the  name  of  God,  come  out  of  it,  all  true  men  ! 

Piety  of  heart,  a  certain  reality  of  religious  faith,  was  al- 
ways Sterling's,  the  gift  of  nature  to  him  which  he  would  not 
and  could  not  throw  away ;  but  I  find  at  this  time  his  religion 
is  as  good  as  altogether  Ethnic,  Greekish,  what  Goethe  calls  the 
Heathen  form  of  religion.  The  Church,  with  her  articles,  is 
without  relation  to  him.  And  along  with  obsolete  spiritualisms, 
he  sees  all-manner  of  obsolete  thrones  and  big-wigged  tempo- 
ralities ;  and  for  them  also  can  prophesy,  and  wish,  only  a 
speedy  doom.  Doom  inevitable,  registered  in  Heaven's  Chan- 
cery from  the  beginning  of  days,  doom  unalterable  as  the  pillars 
of  the  world  ;  the  gods  are  angry,  and  all  nature  groans,  till 
this  doom  of  eternal  justice  be  fulfilled. 

With  gay  audacity,  with  enthusiasm  tempered  by  mockery, 
as  is  the  manner  of  young  gifted  men,  this  faith,  grounded  for 
the  present  on  democracy  and  hustings  operations,  and  giving 
to  all  life  the  aspect  of  a  chivalrous  battlefield,  or  almost  of  a 
gay  though  perilous  tournament,  and  bout  of  "A  hundred 
knights  against  all  comers," — was  maintained  by  Sterling  and 
his  friends.  And  in  fine,  after  whatever  loud  remonstrances, 
and  solemn  considerations,  and  such  shaking  of  our  wigs  as  is 
undoubtedly  natural  in  the  case,  let  us  be  just  to  it  and  him. 
We  shall  have  to  admit,  nay  it  will  behove  us  to  see  and  prac- 
tically know,  for  ourselves  and  him  and  others,  that  the  essence 
of  this  creed,  in  times  like  ours,  was  right  and  not  wrong.  That, 
however  the  ground  and  form  of  it  might  change,  essentially 
it  was  the  monition  of  his  natal  genius  to  this  as  it  is  to  every 


46  JOHN  STERLING. 

brave  man ;  the  behest  of  all  his  clear  insight  into  this  Uni- 
verse, the  message  of  Heaven  through  him,  which  he  could  not 
suppress,  but  was  inspired  and  compelled  to  utter  in  this  world 
by  such  methods  as  he  had.  There  for  him  lay  the  first  com- 
mandment ;  this  is  what  it  would  have  been  the  unforgivable  sin 
to  swerve  from  and  desert :  the  treason  of  treasons  for  him,  it 
were  there  ;  compared  with  which  all  other  sins  are  venial ! 

The  message  did  not  cease  at  all,  as  we  shall  see ;  the 
message  was  ardently,  if  fitfully,  continued  to  the  end  :  but  the 
methods,  the  tone  and  dialect  and  all  outer  conditions  of  utter- 
ing it,  underwent  most  important  modifications  ! 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

COLERIDGE. 

COLERIDGE  sat  on  the  brow  of  Highgate  Hill,  in  those  years, 
looking  down  on  London  and  its  smoke -tumult,  like  a  sage 
escaped  from  the  inanity  of  life's  battle  ;  attracting  towards  him 
the  thoughts  of  innumerable  brave  souls  still  engaged  there. 
His  express  contributions  to  poetry,  philosophy,  or  any  specific 
province  of  human  literature  or  enlightenment,  had  been  small 
and  sadly  intermittent ;  but  he  had,  especially  among  young 
inquiring  men,  a  higher  than  literary,  a  kind  of  prophetic  or 
magician  character.  He  was  thought  to  hold,  he  alone  in  Eng- 
land, the  key  of  German  and  other  Transcendentalisms  ;  knew 
the  sublime  secret  of  believing  by  '  the  reason'  what  '  the  un- 
derstanding' had  been  obliged  to  fling  out  as  incredible ;  and 
could  still,  after  Hume  and  Voltaire  had  done  their  best  and 
worst  with  him,  profess  himself  an  orthodox  Christian,  and  say 
and  print  to  the  Church  of  England,  with  its  singular  old  rubrics 
and  surplices  at  Allhallowtide,  Esto  perpetua.  A  sublime  man ; 
who,  alone  in  those  dark  days,  had  saved  his  crown  of  spiritual 
manhood ;  escaping  from  the  black  materialisms,  and  revolu- 
tionary deluges,  with  '  God,  Freedom,  Immortality'  still  his  :  a 
king  of  men.  The  practical  intellects  of  the  world  did  not  much 
heed  him,  or  carelessly  reckoned  him  a  metaphysical  dreamer : 
but  to  the  rising  spirits  of  the  young  generation  he  had  this 
dusky  sublime  character ;  and  sat  there  as  a  kind  of  Magus, 


COLERIDGE.  47 

girt  in  mystery  and  enigma ;  his  Dodona  oak-grove  (Mr.  Gil- 
man's  house  at  Highgate)  whispering  strange  things,  uncertain 
whether  oracles  or  jargon. 

The  Gilmans  did  not  encourage  much  company,  or  excita- 
tion of  any  sort,  round  their  sage  ;  nevertheless  access  to  him, 
if  a  youth  did  reverently  wish  it,  was  not  difficult.  He  would 
stroll  about  the  pleasant  garden  with  you,  sit  in  the  pleasant 
rooms  of  the  place, — perhaps  take  you  to  his  own  peculiar  room, 
high  up,  with  a  rearward  view,  which  was  the  chief  view  of  all. 
A  really  charming  outlook,  in  fine  weather.  Close  at  hand,  wide 
sweep  of  flowery  leafy  gardens,  their  few  houses  mostly  hidden, 
the  very  chimney-pots  veiled  under  blossomy  umbrage,  flowed 
gloriously  down  hill ;  gloriously  issuing  in  wide-tufted  undulat- 
ing plain-country,  rich  in  all  charms  of  field  and  town.  Waving 
blooming  country  of  the  brightest  green  ;  dotted  all  over  with 
handsome  villas,  handsome  groves  ;  crossed  by  roads  and  human 
traffic,  here  inaudible  or  heard  only  as  a  musical  hum  :  and  be- 
hind all  swam,  under  olive-tinted  haze,  the  illimitable  limitary 
ocean  of  London,  with  its  domes  and  steeples  definite  in  the 
sun,  big  Paul's  and  the  many  memories  attached  to  it  hanging 
high  over  all.  Nowhere,  of  its  kind,  could  you  see  a  grander 
prospect  on  a  bright  summer  day,  with  the  set  of  the  air  going 
southward, — southward,  and  so  draping  with  the  city-smoke  not 
you  but  the  city.  Here  for  hours  would  Coleridge  talk,  concern- 
ing all  conceivable  or  inconceivable  things  ;  and  liked  nothing 
better  than  to  have  an  intelligent,  or  failing  that,  even  a  silent 
and  patient  human  listener.  He  distinguished  himself  to  all 
that  ever  heard  him  as  at  least  the  most  surprising  talker  ex- 
tant in  this  world, — and  to  some  small  minority,  by  no  means 
to  all,  as  the  most  excellent. 

The  good  man,  he  was  now  getting  old,  towards  sixty  per- 
haps ;  and  gave  you  the  idea  of  a  life  that  had  been  full  of 
sufferings  ;  a  life  heavy-laden,  half-vanquished,  still  swimming 
painfully  in  seas  of  manifold  physical  and  other  bewilderment. 
Brow  and  head  were  round,  and  of  massive  weight,  but  the  face 
was  flabby  and  irresolute.  The  deep  eyes,  of  a  light  hazel,  were 
as  full  of  sorrow  as  of  inspiration  ;  confused  pain  looked  mildly 
from  them,  as  in  a  kind  of  mild  astonishment.  The  whole  figure 
and  air,  good  and  amiable  othenvise,  might  be  called  flabby 
and  irresolute ;  expressive  of  weakness  under  possibility  01 


48  JOHN  STERLING. 

strength.  He  hung  loosely  on  his  limbs,  with  knees  bent,  and 
stooping  attitude ;  in  walking,  he  rather  shuffled  than  decisively 
stept ;  and  a  lady  once  remarked,  he  never  could  fix  which  side 
of  the  garden  walk  would  suit  him  best,  but  continually  shifted, 
in  corkscrew  fashion,  and  kept  trying  both.  A  heavy-laden,  high- 
aspiring  and  surely  much-suffering  man.  His  voice,  naturally 
soft  and  good,  had  contracted  itself  into  a  plaintive  snuffle  and 
singsong  ;  he  spoke  as  if  preaching,  —  you  would  have  said, 
preaching  earnestly  and  also  hopelessly  the  weightiest  things. 
I  still  recollect  his  'object'  and  'subject,'  terms  of  continual 
recurrence  in  the  Kantean  province  ;  and  how  he  sang  and 
snuffled  them  into  "  om-m-mject"  and  "sum-m-mject,"  with  a 
kind  of  solemn  shake  or  quaver,  as  he  rolled  along.  No  talk, 
in  his  century  or  in  any  other,  could  be  more  surprising. 

Sterling,  who  assiduously  attended  him,  with  profound  re- 
verence, and  was  often  with  him  by  himself,  for  a  good  many 
months,  gives  a  record  of  their  first  colloquy.1  Their  colloquies 
were  numerous,  and  he  had  taken  note  of  many  ;  but  they  are 
all  gone  to  the  fire,  except  this  first,  which  Mr.  Hare  has  printed, 
— unluckily  without  date.  It  contains  a  number  of  ingenious, 
true  and  half-true  observations,  and  is  of  course  a  faithful  epi- 
tome of  the  things  said  ;  but  it  gives  small  idea  of  Coleridge's 
way  of  talking  ; — this  one  feature  is  perhaps  the  most  recognis- 
able, '  Our  interview  lasted  for  three  hours,  during  which  he 
talked  two  hours  and  three  quarters.'  Nothing  could  be  more 
copious  than  his  talk  ;  and  furthermore  it  was  always,  virtually 
or  literally,  of  the  nature  of  a  monologue  ;  suffering  no  inter- 
ruption, however  reverent ;  hastily  putting  aside  all  foreign  ad- 
ditions, annotations,  or  most  ingenuous  desires  for  elucidation, 
as  well-meant  superfluities  which  would  never  do.  Besides,  it 
was  talk  not  flowing  anywhither  like  a  river,  but  spreading 
everywhither  in  inextricable  currents  and  regurgitations  like  a 
lake  or  sea  ;  terribly  deficient  in  definite  goal  or  aim,  nay  often 
in  logical  intelligibility  ;  what  you  were  to  believe  or  do,  on  any 
earthly  or  heavenly  thing,  obstinately  refusing  to  appear  from 
it.  So  that,  most  times,  you  felt  logically  lost ;  swamped  near 
to  drowning  in  this  tide  of  ingenious  vocables,  spreading  out 
boundless  as  if  to  submerge  the  world. 

To  sit  as  a  passive  bucket  and  be  pumped  into,  whether 
1  Biography,  by  Hare,  pp.  xvi.-xxvi. 


COLERIDGE.  49 

you  consent  or  not,  can  in  the  long-run  be  exhilarating  to  no 
creature  ;  how  eloquent  soever  the  flood  of  utterance  that  is  de- 
scending. But  if  it  be  withal  a  confused  unintelligible  flood  of 
utterance,  threatening  to  submerge  all  known  landmarks  of 
thought,  and  drown  the  world  and  you  ! — I  have  heard  Cole- 
ridge talk,  with  eager  musical  energy,  two  stricken  hours,  his 
face  radiant  and  moist,  and  communicate  no  meaning  whatso- 
ever to  any  individual  of  his  hearers, — certain  of  whom,  I  for 
one,  still  kept  eagerly  listening  in  hope  ;  the  most  had  long 
before  given  up,  and  formed  (if  the  room  were  large  enough) 
secondary  humming  groups  of  their  own.  He  began  anywhere: 
you  put  some  question  to  him,  made  some  suggestive  observa- 
tion :  instead  of  answering  this,  or  decidedly  setting  out  towards 
answer  of  it,  he  would  accumulate  formidable  apparatus,  logical 
swim-bladders,  transcendental  life-preservers  and  other  precau- 
tionary and  vehiculatory  gear,  for  setting  out ;  perhaps  did  at 
last  get  under  way, — but  was  swiftly  solicited,  turned  aside  by 
the  glance  of  some  radiant  new  game  on  this  hand  or  that,  into 
new  courses  ;  and  ever  into  new  ;  and  before  long  into  all  the 
Universe,  where  it  was  uncertain  what  game  you  would  catch, 
or  whether  any. 

His  talk,  alas,  was  distinguished,  like  himself,  by  irresolu- 
tion :  it  disliked  to  be  troubled  with  conditions,  abstinences, 
definite  fulfilments  ; — -loved  to  wander  at  its  own  sweet  will,  and 
make  its  auditor  and  his  claims  and  humble  wishes  a  mere 
passive  bucket  for  itself !  He  had  knowledge  about  many  things 
and  topics,  much  curious  reading  ;  but  generally  all  topics  led 
him,  after  a  pass  or  two,  into  the  high  seas  oftheosophic  philo- 
sophy, the  hazy  infinitude  of  Kantean  transcendentalism,  with 
its  '  sum-m-mjects'  and  '  om-m-mjects.'  Sad  enough  ;  for  with 
such  indolent  impatience  of  the  claims  and  ignorances  of  others, 
he  had  not  the  least  talent  for  explaining  this  or  anything  un- 
known to  them  ;  and  you  swam  and  fluttered  in  the  mistiest 
wide  unintelligible  deluge  of  things,  for  most  part  in  a  rather 
profitless  uncomfortable  manner. 

Glorious  islets,  too,  I  have  seen  rise  out  of  the  haze ;  but 
they  were  few,  and  soon  swallowed  in  the  general  element  again. 
Balmy  sunny  islets,  islets  of  the  blest  and  the  intelligible  : — on 
which  occasions  those  secondary  humming  groups  would  all 
cease  humming,  and  hang  breathless  upon  the  eloquent  words ; 

E 


50  JOHN  STERLING. 

till  once  your  islet  got  wrapt  in  the  mist  again,  and  they  could 
recommence  humming.  Eloquent  artistically  expressive  words 
you  always  had ;  piercing  radiances  of  a  most  subtle  insight 
came  at  intervals  ;  tones  of  noble  pious  sympathy,  recognisable 
as  pious  though  strangely  coloured,  were  never  wanting  long  : 
but  in  general  you  could  not  call  this  aimless,  cloudcapt,  cloud- 
based,  lawlessly  meandering  human  discourse  of  reason  by  the 
name  of  'excellent  talk,'  but  only  of  'surprising ;'  and  were  re- 
minded bitterly  of  Hazlitt's  account  of  it:  "Excellent  talker, 
"  very, — if  you  let  him  start  from  no  premises  and  come  to  no 
"  conclusion."  Coleridge  was  not  without  what  talkers  call  wit, 
and  there  were  touches  of  prickly  sarcasm  in  him,  contemptuous 
enough  of  the  world  and  its  idols  and  popular  dignitaries  ;  he 
had  traits  even  of  poetic  humour  :  but  in  general  he  seemed  de- 
ficient in  laughter  ;  or  indeed  in  sympathy  for  concrete  human 
things  either  on  the  sunny  or  on  the  stormy  side.  One  right 
peal  of  concrete  laughter  at  some  convicted  flesh -and -blood 
absurdity,  one  burst  of  noble  indignation  at  some  injustice  or 
depravity,  rubbing  elbows  with  us  on  this  solid  Earth,  how 
strange  would  it  have  been  in  that  Kantean  haze-world,  and  how 
infinitely  cheering  amid  its  vacant  air-castles  and  dim-melting 
ghosts  and  shadows  !  None  such  ever  came.  His  life  had  been 
an  abstract  thinking  and  dreaming,  idealistic,  passed  amid  the 
ghosts  of  defunct  bodies  and  of  unborn  ones.  The  moaning 
singsong  of  that  theosophico- metaphysical  monotony  left  on 
you,  at  last,  a  very  dreary  feeling. 

In  close  colloquy,  flowing  within  narrower  banks,  I  suppose 
he  was  more  definite  and  apprehensible  ;  Sterling  in  aftertimes 
did  not  complain  of  his  unintelligibility,  or  imputed  it  only  to 
the  abstruse  high  nature  of  the  topics  handled.  Let  us  hope  so, 
let  us  try  to  believe  so  !  There  is  no  doubt  but  Coleridge  could 
speak  plain  words  on  things  plain  :  his  observations  and  re- 
sponses on  the  trivial  matters  that  occurred  were  as  simple  as 
the  commonest  man's,  or  were  even  distinguished  by  superior 
simplicity  as  well  as  pertinency.  "Ah,  your  tea  is  too  cold,  Mr. 
Coleridge  !"  mourned  the  good  Mrs.  Oilman  once,  in  her  kind, 
reverential  and  yet  protective  manner,  handing  him  a  very  toler- 
able though  belated  cup. — •"  It's  better  than  I  deserve  !"  snuffled 
he,  in  a  low  hoarse  murmur,  partly  courteous,  chiefly  pious,  the 
tone  of  which  still  abides  with  me  :  "  It's  better  than  I  deserve !" 


COLERIDGE.  51 

But  indeed,  to  the  young  ardent  mind,  instinct  with  pious 
nobleness,  yet  driven  to  the  grim  deserts  of  Radicalism  for  a 
faith,  his  speculations  had  a  charm  much  more  than  literary,  a 
charm  almost  religious  and  prophetic.  The  constant  gist  of  his 
discourse  was  lamentation  over  the  sunk  condition  of  the  world ; 
which  he  recognised  to  be  given-up  to  Atheism  and  Materialism, 
full  of  mere  sordid  misbeliefs,  mispursuits  and  misresults.  All 
Science  had  become  mechanical ;  the  science  not  of  men,  but 
of  a  kind  of  human  beavers.  Churches  themselves  had  died 
away  into  a  godless  mechanical  condition  ;  and  stood  there  as 
mere  Cases  of  Articles,  mere  Forms  of  Churches  ;  like  the  dried 
carcasses  of  once-swift  camels,  which  you  find  left  withering  in 
the  thirst  of  the  universal  desert, — ghastly  portents  for  the  pre- 
sent, beneficent  ships  of  the  desert  no  more.  Men's  souls  were 
blinded,  hebetated  ;  and  sunk  under  the  influence  of  Atheism 
and  Materialism,  and  Hume  and  Voltaire  :  the  world  for  the 
present  was  as  an  extinct  world,  deserted  of  God,  and  incapable 
of  welldoing  till  it  changed  its  heart  and  spirit.  This,  expressed 
I  think  with  less  of  indignation  and  with  more  of  long-drawn 
querulousness,  was  always  recognisable  as  the  ground-tone  : — 
in  which  truly  a  pious  young  heart,  driven  into  Radicalism  and 
the  opposition  party,  could  not  but  recognise  a  too  sorrowful 
truth ;  and  ask  of  the  Oracle,  with  all  earnestness,  What  re- 
medy, then  ? 

The  remedy,  though  Coleridge  himself  professed  to  see  it 
as  in  sunbeams,  could  not,  except  by  processes  unspeakably 
difficult,  be  described  to  you  at  all.  On  the  whole,  those  dead 
Churches,  this  dead  English  Church  especially,  must  be  brought 
to  life  again.  Why  not  ?  It  was  not  dead  ;  the  soul  of  it,  in  this 
parched-up  body,  was  tragically  asleep  only.  Atheistic  Philo- 
sophy was  true  on  its  side,  and  Hume  and  Voltaire  could  on 
their  own  ground  speak  irrefragably  for  themselves  against  any 
Church  :  but  lift  the  Church  and  them  into  a  higher  sphere  oi 
argument,  they  died  into  inanition,  the  Church  revivified  itself 
into  pristine  florid  vigour, — became  once  more  a  living  ship  of 
the  desert,  and  invincibly  bore  you  over  stock  and  stone.  But 
how,  but  how  !  By  attending  to  the  '  reason'  of  man,  said  Cole- 
ridge, and  duly  chaining-up  the  '  understanding'  of  man  :  the 
Vernunft  (Reason)  and  Verstand  (Understanding)  of  the  Ger- 
mans, it  all  turned  upon  these,  if  you  could  well  understand 


S3  JOHN  STERLING. 

them, — which  you  couldn't.  For  the  rest,  Mr.  Coleridge  had 
on  the  anvil  various  Books,  especially  was  about  to  write  one 
grand  Book  On  the  Logos,  which  would  help  to  bridge  the  chasm 
for  us.  So  much  appeared,  however  :  Churches,  though  proved 
false  (as  you  had  imagined),  were  still  true  (as  you  were  to 
imagine)  :  here  was  an  Artist  who  could  burn  you  up  an  old 
Church,  root  and  branch  ;  and  then  as  the  Alchymists  professed 
to  do  with  organic  substances  in  general, .  distil  you  an  '  Astral 
Spirit'  from  the  ashes,  which  was  the  very  image  of  the  old 
burnt  article,  its  airdrawn  counterpart, — this  you  still  had,  or 
might  get,  and  draw  uses  from,  if  you  could.  Wait  till  the  Book 
on  the  Logos  were  done  ; — alas,  till  your  own  terrene  eyes,  blind 
with  conceit  and  the  dust  of  logic,  were  purged,  subtilised  and 
spiritualised  into  the  sharpness  of  vision  requisite  for  discerning 
such  an  "om-m-rnject." — The  ingenuous  young  English  head, 
of  those  days,  stood  strangely  puzzled  by  such  revelations  ;  un- 
certain whether  it  were  getting  inspired,  or  getting  infatuated 
into  flat  imbecility ;  and  strange  effulgence,  of  new  day  or  else 
of  deeper  meteoric  night,  coloured  the  horizon  of  the  future 
for  it. 

Let  me  not  be  unjust  to  this  memorable  man.  Surely  there 
was  here,  in  his  pious,  ever-labouring,  subtle  mind,  a  precious 
truth,  or  prefigurement  of  truth ;  and  yet  a  fatal  delusion  withal. 
Prefigurement  that,  in  spite  of  beaver  sciences  and  temporary 
spiritual  hebetude  and  cecity,  man  and  his  Universe  were  eter- 
nally divine  ;  and  that  no  past  nobleness,  or  revelation  of  the 
divine,  could  or  would  ever  be  lost  to  him.  Most  true,  surely, 
and  worthy  of  all  acceptance.  Good  also  to  do  what  you  can 
with  old  Churches  and  practical  Symbols  of  the  Noble  :  nay 
quit  not  the  burnt  ruins  of  them  while  you  find  there  is  still  gold 
to  be  dug  there.  But,  on  the  whole,  do  not  think  you  can,  by 
logical  alchymy,  distil  astral  spirits  from  them;  or  if  you  could, 
that  said  astral  spirits,  or  defunct  logical  phantasms,  could  serve 
you  in  anything.  What  the  light  of  your  mind,  which  is  the 
direct  inspiration  of  the  Almighty,  pronounces  incredible, — that, 
in  God's  name,  leave  uncredited ;  at  your  peril  do  not  try  be- 
lieving that.  No  subtlest  hocus-pocus  of  'reason'  versus  'under- 
standing' will  avail  for  that  feat  ; — and  it  is  terribly  perilous  to 
try  it  in  these  provinces  ! 

The  truth  is,  I  now  see,  Coleridge's  talk  and  speculation 


COLERIDGE.  53 

was  the  emblem  of  himself :  in  it  as  in  him,  a  ray  of  heavenly 
inspiration  struggled,  in  a  tragically  ineffectual  degree,  with  the 
weakness  of  flesh  and  blood.  He  says  once,  he  'had  skirted 
the  howling  deserts  of  Infidelity;'  this  was  evident  enough:  but 
he  had  not  had  the  courage,  in  defiance  of  pain  and  terror,  to 
press  resolutely  across  said  deserts  to  the  new  firm  lands  of 
Faith  beyond;  he  preferred  to  create  logical  fatamorganas  for 
himself  on  this  hither  side,  and  laboriously  solace  himself  with 
these. 

To  the  man  himself  Nature  had  given,  in  high  measure,  the 
seeds  of  a  noble  endowment ;  and  to  unfold  it  had  been  forbidden 
him.  A  subtle  lynx-eyed  intellect,  tremulous  pious  sensibility  to 
all  good  and  all  beautiful ;  truly  a  ray  of  empyrean  light ; — but 
imbedded  in  such  weak  laxity  of  character,  in  such  indolences 
and  esuriences  as  had  made  strange  work  with  it.  Once  more, 
the  tragic  story  of  a  high  endowment  with  an  insufficient  will. 
An  eye  to  discern  the  divineness  of  the  Heaven's  splendours  and 
lightnings,  the  insatiable  wish  to  revel  in  their  godlike  radiances 
and  brilliances  ;  but  no  heart  to  front  the  scathing  terrors  of 
them,  which  is  the  first  condition  of  your  conquering  an  abiding 
place  there.  The  courage  necessary  for  him,  above  all  things, 
had  been  denied  this  man.  His  life,  with  such  ray  of  the  em- 
pyrean in  it,  was  great  and  terrible  to  him  ;  and  he  had  not 
valiantly  grappled  with  it,  he  had  fled  from  it ;  sought  refuge 
in  vague  day-dreams,  hollow  compromises,  in  opium,  in  theo- 
sophic  metaphysics.  Harsh  pain,  danger,  necessity,  slavish 
harnessed  toil,  were  of  all  things  abhorrent  to  him.  And  so  the 
empyrean  element,  lying  smothered  under  the  terrene,  and  yet 
inextinguishable  there,  made  sad  writhings.  For  pain,  danger, 
difficulty,  steady  slaving  toil,  and  other  highly  disagreeable  be- 
hests of  destiny,  shall  in  no  wise  be  shirked  by  any  brightest 
mortal  that  will  approve  himself  loyal  to  his  mission  in  this 
world ;  nay,  precisely  the  higher  he  is,  the  deeper  will  be  the 
disagreeableness,  and  the  detestability  to  flesh  and  blood,  of 
the  tasks  laid  on  him ;  and  the  heavier  too,  and  more  tragic,  his 
penalties  if  he  neglect  them. 

For  the  old  Eternal  Powers  do  live  forever ;  nor  do  their 
laws  know  any  change,  however  we  in  our  poor  wigs  and  church- 
tippets  may  attempt  to  read  their  laws.  To  steal  into  Heaven, 
— by  the  modern  method,  of  sticking  ostrich-like  your  head  into 


54  JOHN  STERLING. 

fallacies  on  Earth,  equally  as  by  the  ancient  and  by  all  con- 
ceivable methods, — is  forever  forbidden.  High-treason  is  the 
name  of  that  attempt ;  and  it  continues  to  be  punished  as  such. 
Strange  enough:  here  once  more  was  a  kind  of  Heaven-scaling 
Ixion  ;  and  to  him,  as  to  the  old  one,  the  just  gods  were  very 
stern  !  The  ever-revolving,  never-advancing  Wheel  (of  a  kind) 
was  his,  through  life  ;  and  from  his  Cloud-Juno  did  not  he  too 
procreate  strange  Centaurs,  spectral  Puseyisms,  monstrous  illu- 
sory Hybrids,  and  ecclesiastical  Chimeras, — which  now  roam 
the  earth  in  a  very  lamentable  manner ! 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SPANISH  EXILES. 

THIS  magical  ingredient  thrown  into  the  wild  cauldron  of 
such  a  mind,  which  we  have  seen  occupied  hitherto  with  mere 
Ethnicism,  Radicalism  and  revolutionary  tumult,  but  hungering 
all  along  for  something  higher  and  better,  was  sure  to  be  eagerly 
welcomed  and  imbibed,  and  could  not  fail  to  produce  important 
fermentations  there.  Fermentations ;  important  new  directions, 
and  withal  important  new  perversions,  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
this  man,  as  it  has  since  done  in  the  lives  of  so  many.  Here 
then  is  the  new  celestial  manna  we  were  all  in  quest  of?  This 
thrice-refined  pabulum  of  transcendental  moonshine  ?  Whoso 
eateth  thereof, — yes,  what,  on  the  whole,  will  he  probably 
grow  to  ? 

Sterling  never  spoke  much  to  me  of  his  intercourse  with 
Coleridge  ;  and  when  we  did  compare  notes  about  him,  it  was 
usually  rather  in  the  way  of  controversial  discussion  than  of 
narrative.  So  that,  from  my  own  resources,  I  can  give  no  details 
of  the  business,  nor  specify  anything  in  it,  except  the  general 
fact  of  an  ardent  attendance  at  Highgate  continued  for  many 
months,  which  was  impressively  known  to  all  Sterling's  friends ; 
and  am  unable  to  assign  even  the  limitary  dates,  Sterling's  own 
papers  on  the  subject  having  all  been  destroyed  by  him.  Infer- 
ences point  to  the  end  of  1828  as  the  beginning  of  this  inter- 
course ;  perhaps  in  1829  it  was  at  the  highest  point;  and  al- 
ready in  1 830,  when  the  intercourse  itself  was  about  to  terminate, 


SPANISH  EXILES.  55 

we  have  proof  of  the  influences  it  was  producing, — in  the  Novel 
of  Arthur  Coningsby,  then  on  hand,  the  first  and  only  Book  that 
Sterling  ever  wrote.  His  writings  hitherto  had  been  sketches, 
criticisms,  brief  essays ;  he  was  now  trying  it  on  a  wider  scale ; 
but  not  yet  with  satisfactory  results,  and  it  proved  to  be  his  only 
trial  in  that  form. 

He  had  already,  as  was  intimated,  given-up  his  brief  pro- 
prietorship of  the  AtJienceumj  the  commercial  indications,  and 
state  of  sales  and  of  costs,  peremptorily  ordering  him  to  do  so ; 
the  copyright  went  by  sale  or  gift,  I  know  not  at  what  precise 
date,  into  other  fitter  hands ;  and  with  the  copyright  all  con- 
nexion on  the  part  of  Sterling.  .To  Athenaeum  Sketches  had 
now  (in  1 829-30)  succeeded  Arthur  Coningsby,  a  Novel  in  three 
volumes ;  indicating  (when  it  came  to  light,  a  year  or  two  after- 
wards) equally  hasty  and  much  more  ambitious  aims  in  Litera- 
ture;— giving  strong  evidence,  too,  of  internal  spiritual  revulsions 
going  painfully  forward,  and  in  particular  of  the  impression 
Coleridge  was  producing  on  him.  Without  and  within,  it  was  a 
wild  tide  of  things  this  ardent  light  young  soul  was  afloat  upon, 
at  present ;  and  his  outlooks  into  the  future,  whether  for  his 
spiritual  or  economic  fortunes,  were  confused  enough. 

Among  his  familiars  in  this  period,  I  might  have  mentioned 
one  Charles  Barton,  formerly  his  fellow-student  at  Cambridge, 
now  an  amiable,  cheerful,  rather  idle  young  fellow  about  Town  ; 
who  led  the  way  into  certain  new  experiences,  and  lighter  fields, 
for  Sterling.  His  Father,  Lieutenant -General  Barton  of  the 
Life-guards,  an  Irish  landlord,  I  think  in  Fermanagh  County, 
and  a  man  of  connexions  about  Court,  lived  in  a  certain  figure 
here  in  Town;  had  a  wife  of  fashionable  habits,  with  other  sons, 
and  also  daughters,  bred  in  this  sphere.  These,  all  of  them, 
were  amiable,  elegant  and  pleasant  people ; — such  was  especially 
an  eldest  daughter,  Susannah  Barton,  a  stately  blooming  black- 
eyed  young  woman,  attractive  enough  in  form  and  character ; 
full  of  gay  softness,  of  indolent  sense  and  enthusiasm  ;  about 
Sterling's  own  age,  if  not  a  little  older.  In  this  house,  which 
opened  to  him,  more  decisively  than  his  Father's,  a  new  stratum 
of  society,  and  where  his  reception  for  Charles's  sake  and  his 
own  was  of  the  kindest,  he  liked  very  well  to  be  ;  and  spent,  I 
suppose,  many  of  his  vacant  half-hours,  lightly  chatting  with  the 


56  JOHN  STERLING. 

elders  or  the  youngsters, — doubtless  with  the  young  lady  too, 
though  as  yet  without  particular  intentions  on  either  side. 

Nor,  with  all  the  Coleridge  fermentation,  was  democratic 
Radicalism  by  any  means  given  up ; — though  how  it  was  to  live 
if  the  Coleridgean  moonshine  took  effect,  might  have  been  an 
abstruse  question.  Hitherto,  while  said  moonshine  was  but 
taking  effect,  and  colouring  the  outer  surface  of  things  without 
quite  penetrating  into  the  heart,  democratic  Liberalism,  revolt 
against  superstition  and  oppression,  and  help  to  whosoever 
would  revolt,  was  still  the  grand  element  in  Sterling's  creed  ; 
and  practically  he  stood,  not  ready  only,  but  full  of  alacrity  to 
fulfil  all  its  behests.  We  heard  long  since  of  the  '  black  dra- 
goons,'— whom  doubtless  the  new  moonshine  had  considerably 
silvered-over  into  new  hues,  by  this  time : — but  here  now,  while 
Radicalism  is  tottering  for  him  and  threatening  to  crumble, 
comes  suddenly  the  grand  consummation  and  explosion  of  Radi- 
calism in  his  life ;  whereby,  all  at  once,  Radicalism  exhausted 
and  ended  itself,  and  appeared  no  more  there. 

In  those  years  a  visible  section  of  the  London  population, 
and  conspicuous  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  size  or  value,  was  a 
small  knot  of  Spaniards,  who  had  sought  shelter  here  as  Poli- 
tical Refugees.  "  Political  Refugees  :"  a  tragic  succession  of 
that  class  is  one  of  the  possessions  of  England  in  our  time. 
Six-and-twenty  years  ago,  when  I  first  saw  London,  I  remember 
those  unfortunate  Spaniards  among  the  new  phenomena.  Daily 
in  the  cold  spring  air,  under  skies  so  unlike  their  own,  you 
could  see  a  group  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  stately  tragic  figures,  in 
proud  threadbare  cloaks  ;  perambulating,  mostly  with  closed 
lips,  the  broad  pavements  of  Euston  Square  and  the  regions 
about  St.  Pancras  new  Church.  Their  lodging  was  chiefly  in 
Somers  Town,  as  I  understood  ;  and  those  open  pavements 
about  St.  Pancras  Church  were  the  general  place  of  rendez- 
vous. They  spoke  little  or  no  English  ;  knew  nobody,  could 
employ  themselves  on  nothing,  in  this  new  scene.  Old  steel- 
gray  heads,  many  of  them ;  the  shaggy,  thick,  blue-black  hair 
of  others  struck  you  ;  their  brown  complexion,  dusky  look  of 
suppressed  fire,  in  general  their  tragic  condition  as  of  caged 
Numidian  lions. 

That  particular  Flight  of  Unfortunates  has  long  since  fled 


TORRIJOS.  57 

again,  and  vanished  ;  and  new  have  come  and  fled.  In  this 
convulsed  revolutionary  epoch,  which  already  lasts  above  sixty 
years,  what  tragic  flights  of  such  have  we  not  seen  arrive  on  the 
one  safe  coast  which  is  open  to  them,  as  they  get  successively 
vanquished,  and  chased  into  exile  to  avoid  worse  !  Swarm 
after  swarm,  of  ever-new  complexion,  from  Spain  as  from  other 
countries,  is  thrown  off,  in  those  ever-recurring  paroxysms ;  and 
will  continue  to  be  thrown  off.  As  there  could  be  (suggests 
Linnaeus)  a  'flower-clock,'  measuring  the  hours  of  the  day,  and 
the  months  of  the  year,  by  the  kinds  of  flowers  that  go  to  sleep 
and  awaken,  that  blow  into  beauty  and  fade  into  dust  :  so  in 
the  great  Revolutionary  Horologe,  one  might  mark  the  years 
and  epochs  by  the  successive  kinds  of  exiles  that  walk  London 
streets,  and,  in  grim  silent  manner,  demand  pity  from  us  and 
reflections  from  us. — This  then  extant  group  of  Spanish  Exiles 
was  the  Trocadero  swarm,  thrown-offin  1823,  in  the  Riego  and 
Ouirogas  quarrel.  These  were  they  whom  Charles  Tenth  had, 
by  sheer  force,  driven  from  their  constitutionalisms  and  their 
Trocadero  fortresses, — Charles  Tenth,  who  himself  was  soon 
driven  out,  manifoldly  by  sheer  force  ;  and  had  to  head  his 
own  swarm  of  fugitives  ;  and  has  now  himself  quite  vanished, 
and  given  place  to  others.  For  there  is  no  end  of  them  ;  pro- 
pelling and  propelled  ! — 

Of  these  poor  Spanish  Exiles,  now  vegetating  about  Somers 
Town,  and  painfully  beating  the  pavement  in  Euston  Square, 
the  acknowledged  chief  was  General  Torrijos,  a  man  of  high 
qualities  and  fortunes,  still  in  the  vigour  of  his  years,  and  in 
these  desperate  circumstances  refusing  to  despair  ;  with  whom 
Sterling  had,  at  this  time,  become  intimate. 


CHAPTER  X. 

TORRIJOS. 

TORRIJOS,  who  had  now  in  1829  been  here  some  four  or 
five  years,  having  come  over  in  1824,  had  from  the  first  enjoyed 
a  superior  reception  in  England.  Possessing  not  only  a  language 
to  speak,  which  few  of  the  others  did,  but  manifold  experiences 
courtly,  military,  diplomatic,  with  fine  natural  faculties,  and 


58  JOHN  STERLING. 

high  Spanish  manners  tempered  into  cosmopolitan,  he  had 
been  welcomed  in  various  circles  of  society ;  and  found,  perhaps 
he  alone  of  those  Spaniards,  a  certain  human  companionship 
among  persons  of  some  standing  in  this  country.  With  the 
elder  Sterlings,  among  others,  he  had  made  acquaintance  ;  be- 
came familiar  in  the  social  circle  at  South  Place,  and  was  much 
esteemed  there.  With  Madam  Torrijos,  who  also  was  a  person 
of  amiable  and  distinguished  qualities,  an  affectionate  friend- 
ship grew  up  on  the  part  of  Mrs.  Sterling,  which  ended  only 
with  the  death  of  these  two  ladies.  John  Sterling,  on  arriving 
in  London  from  his  University  work,  naturally  inherited  what 
he  liked  to  take-up  of  this  relation  :  and  in  the  lodgings  in 
Regent  Street,  and  the  democratico-literary  element  there,  Tor- 
rijos became  a  very  prominent,  and  at  length  almost  the  central 
object. 

The  man  himself,  it  is  well  known,  was  a  valiant,  gallant 
man  ;  of  lively  intellect,  of  noble  chivalrous  character :  fine 
talents,  fine  accomplishments,  all  grounding  themselves  on  a 
certain  rugged  veracity,  recommended  him  to  the  discerning. 
He  had  begun  youth  in  the  Court  of  Ferdinand  ;  had  gone  on 
in  Wellington  and  other  arduous,  victorious  and  unvictorious, 
soldierings  ;  familiar  in  camps  and  council-rooms,  in  presence- 
chambers  and  in  prisons.  He  knew  romantic  Spain  ; — he  was 
himself,  standing  withal  in  the  vanguard  of  Freedom's  fight,  a 
kind  of  living  romance.  Infinitely  interesting  to  John  Sterling, 
for  one. 

It  was  to  Torrijos  that  the  poor  Spaniards  of  Somers  Town 
looked  mainly,  in  their  helplessness,  for  every  species  of  help. 
Torrijos,  it  was  hoped,  would  yet  lead  them  into  Spain  and 
glorious  victory  there  ;  meanwhile  here  in  England,  under  de- 
feat, he  was  their  captain  and  sovereign  in  another  painfully  in- 
verse sense.  To  whom,  in  extremity,  everybody  might  apply. 
When  all  present  resources  failed,  and  the  exchequer  was  quite 
out,  there  still  remained  Torrijos.  Torrijos  has  to  find  new 
resources  for  his  destitute  patriots,  find  loans,  find  Spanish 
lessons  for  them  among  his  English  friends  :  in  all  which 
charitable  operations,  it  need  not  be  said,  John  Sterling  was 
his  foremost  man ;  zealous  to  empty  his  own  purse  for  the  object ; 
impetuous  in  rushing  hither  or  thither  to  enlist  the  aid  of  others, 
and  find  lessons  or  something  that  would  do.  His  friends,  of 


TORRIJOS.  59 

course,  had  to  assist ;  the  Bartons,  among  others,  were  wont  to 
assist ; — and  I  have  heard  that  the  fair  Susan,  stirring-up  her 
indolent  enthusiasm  into  practicality,  was  very  successful  in 
finding  Spanish  lessons,  and  the  like,  for  these  distressed  men. 
Sterling  and  his  friends  were  yet  new  in  this  business  ;  but 
Torrijos  and  the  others  were  getting  old  in  it, — and  doubtless 
weary  and  almost  desperate  of  it.  They  had  now  been  seven 
years  in  it,  many  of  them  ;  and  were  asking,  When  will  the 
end  be  ? 

Torrijos  is  described  as  a  man  of  excellent  discernment : 
who  knows  how  long  he  had  repressed  the  unreasonable 
schemes  of  his  followers,  and  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  temptings 
of  fallacious  hope  ?  But  there  comes  at  length  a  sum-total 
of  oppressive  burdens  which  is  intolerable,  which  tempts  the 
wisest  towards  fallacies  for  relief.  These  weary  groups,  pacing 
the  Euston-Square  pavements,  had  often  said  in  their  despair, 
"Were  not  death  in  battle  better?  Here  are  we  slowly 
"  mouldering  into  nothingness;  there  we  might  reach  it  rapidly, 
"  in  flaming  splendour.  Flame,  either  of  victory  to  Spain  and 
"  us,  or  of  a  patriot  death,  the  sure  harbinger  of  victory  to 
"  Spain.  Flame  fit  to  kindle  a  fire  which  no  Ferdinand,  with 
"  all  his  Inquisitions  and  Charles-Tenths,  could  put  out." 
Enough,  in  the  end  of  1829,  Torrijos  himself  had  yielded  to 
this  pressure ;  and  hoping  against  hope,  persuaded  himself  that 
if  he  could  but  land  in  the  South  of  Spain  with  a  small  patriot 
band  well  armed  and  well  resolved,  a  band  carrying  fire  in  its 
heart, — then  Spain,  all  inflammable  as  touchwood,  and  groan- 
ing indignantly  under  its  brutal  tyrant,  might  blaze  wholly  into 
flame  round  him,  and  incalculable  victory  be  won.  Such  was 
his  conclusion  ;  not  sudden,  yet  surely  not  deliberate  either, — 
desperate  rather,  and  forced-on  by  circumstances.  He  thought 
with  himself  that,  considering  Somers  Town  and  considering 
Spain,  the  terrible  chance  was  worth  trying  ;  that  this  big  game 
of  Fate,  go  how  it  might,  was  one  which  the  omens  credibly 
declared  he  and  these  poor  Spaniards  ought  to  play. 

His  whole  industries  and  energies  were  thereupon  bent  to- 
wards starting  the  said  game  ;  and  his  thought  and  continual 
speech  and  song  now  was,  That  if  he  had  a  few  thousand 
pounds  to  buy  arms,  to  freight  a  ship  and  make  the  other  prepa- 
rations, he  and  these  poor  gentlemen,  and  Spain  and  the  world, 


60  JOHN  STERLING. 

were  made  men  and  a  saved  Spain  and  world.  What  talks 
and  consultations  in  the  apartment  in  Regent  Street,  during 
those  winter  days  of  1829-30  ;  setting  into  open  conflagration 
the  young  democracy  that  was  wont  to  assemble  there !  Of 
which  there  is  now  left  next  to  no  remembrance.  For  Sterling 
never  spoke  a  word  of  this  affair  in  after  days,  nor  was  any  oi 
the  actors  much  tempted  to  speak.  We  can  understand  too 
well  that  here  were  young  fervid  hearts  in  an  explosive  condi- 
tion ;  young  rash  heads,  sanctioned  by  a  man's  experienced 
head.  Here  at  last  shall  enthusiasm  and  theory  become  prac- 
tice and  fact ;  fiery  dreams  are  at  last  permitted  to  realise 
themselves ;  and  now  is  the  time  or  never  ! — How  the  Coleridge 
moonshine  comported  itself  amid  these  hot  telluric  flames,  or 
whether  it  had  not  yet  begun  to  play  there  (which  I  rather 
doubt),  must  be  left  to  conjecture. 

Mr.  Hare  speaks  of  Sterling  '  ssrjing  over  to  St.  Valery  in 
an  open  boat  along  with  others,'  upon  one  occasion,  in  this 
enterprise  ; — in  the  fatal  English  scene  of  it,  I  suppose.  Which 
is  very  possible.  Unquestionably  there  was  adventure  enough 
of  other  kinds  for  it,  and  running  to  and  fro  with  all  his  speed 
on  behalf  of  it,  during  these  months  of  his  history  !  Money 
was  subscribed,  collected:  the  young  Cambridge  democrats 
were  all  a-blaze  to  assist  Torrijos  ;  nay  certain  of  them  decided 
to  go  with  him, — and  went.  Only,  as  yet,  the  funds  were 
rather  incomplete.  And  here,  as  I  learn  from  a  good  hand,  is 
the  secret  history  of  their  becoming  complete.  Which,  as  we 
are  upon  the  subject,  I  had  better  give.  But  for  the  following 
circumstance,  they  had  perhaps  never  been  completed  ;  nor  had 
the  rash  enterprise,  or  its  catastrophe,  so  influential  on  the  rest 
of  Sterling's  life,  taken  place  at  all. 

A  certain  Lieutenant  Robert  Boyd,  of  the  Indian  Army,  an 
Ulster  Irishman,  a  cousin  of  Sterling's,  had  received  some 
affront,  or  otherwise  taken  some  disgust  in  that  service ;  had 
thrown-up  his  commission  in  consequence  ;  and  returned  home, 
about  this  time,  with  intent  to  seek  another  course  of  life.  Hav- 
ing only,  for  outfit,  these  impatient  ardours,  some  experience  in 
Indian  drill-exercise,  and  five  thousand  pounds  of  inheritance, 
he  found  the  enterprise  attended  with  difficulties  ;  and  was  some- 
what at  a  loss  how  to  dispose  of  himself.  Some  young  Ulster 
comrade,  in  a  partly  similar  situation,  had  pointed  out  to  him 


TORRIJOS.  6r 

that  there  lay  in  a  certain  neighbouring  creek  of  the  Irish  coast, 
a  worn-out  royal  gun-brig  condemned  to  sale,  to  be  had  dog- 
cheap  :  this  he  proposed  that  they  two,  or  in  fact  Boyd  with 
his  five  thousand  pounds,  should  buy  ;  that  they  should  refit  and 
arm  and  man  it; — and  sail  a -privateering  "to  the  Eastern 
Archipelago,"  Philippine  Isles,  or  I  know  not  where  ;  and  so 
conquer  the  golden  fleece. 

Boyd  naturally  paused  a  little  at  this  great  proposal ;  did 
not  quite  reject  it ;  came  across,  with  it  and  other  fine  projects 
and  impatiences  fermenting  in  his  head,  to  London,  there  to 
see  and  consider.  It  was  in  the  months  when  the  Torrijos  en- 
terprise was  in  the  birth -throes  ;  crying  wildly  for  capital,  of 
all  things.  Boyd  naturally  spoke  of  his  projects  to  Sterling, — 
of  his  gun-brig  lying  in  the  Irish  creek,  among  others.  Sterling 
naturally  said,  "  If  you  want  an  adventure  of  the  Sea-king  sort, 
"  and  propose  to  lay  your  money  and  your  life  into  such  a 
"  game,  here  is  Torrijos  and  Spain  at  his  back  ;  here  is  a  golden 
"  fleece  to  conquer,  worth  twenty  Eastern  Archipelagos." — Boyd 
and  Torrijos  quickly  met;  quickly  bargained.  Boyd's  money 
was  to  go  in  purchasing,  and  storing  with  a  certain  stock  of 
arms  and  etceteras,  a  small  ship  in  the  Thames,  which  should 
carry  Boyd  with  Torrijos  and  the  adventurers  to  the  south  coast 
of  Spain  ;  and  there,  the  game  once  played  and  won,  Boyd  was 
to  have  promotion  enough,  — '  the  colonelcy  of  a  Spanish  ca- 
valry regiment,'  for  one  express  thing.  What  exact  share  Ster- 
ling had  in  this  negotiation,  or  whether  he  did  not  even  take 
the  prudent  side  and  caution  Boyd  to  be  wary,  I  know  not ; 
but  it  was  he  that  brought  the  parties  together  ;  and  all  his 
friends  knew,  in  silence,  that  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  painfully 
remembered  that  fact. 

And  so  a  ship  was  hired,  or  purchased,  in  the  Thames  ;  due 
furnishings  began  to  be  executed  in  it  ;  arms  and  stores  were 
gradually  got  on  board  ;  Torrijos  with  his  Fifty  picked  Spani- 
ards, in  the  mean  while,  getting  ready.  This  was  in  the  spring 
of  1830.  Boyd's  5ooo/.  was  the  grand  nucleus  of  finance  ;  but 
vigorous  subscription  was  carried  on  likewise  in  Sterling's  young 
democratic  circle,  or  wherever  a  member  of  it  could  find  access ; 
not  without  considerable  result,  and  with  a  zeal  that  may  be 
imagined.  Nay,  as  above  hinted,  certain  of  these  young  men 
decided,  not  to  give  their  money  only,  but  themselves  along  with 


62  JOHN  STERLING. 

it,  as  democratic  volunteers  and  soldiers  of  progress ;  among 
whom,  it  need  not  be  said,  Sterling  intended  to  be  foremost. 
Busy  weeks  with  him,  those  spring  ones  of  the  year  1 830  ! 
Through  this  small  Note,  accidentally  preserved  to  us,  addressed 
to  his  friend  Barton,  we  obtain  a  curious  glance  into  the  sub- 
terranean workshop  : 

'  To  Charles  Barton,  Esq.,  Dorset  Sg.,  Regenfs  Park. 
[No  date ;  apparently  March  or  February  1830.] 

'  MY  DEAR  CHARLES, — I  have  wanted  to  see  you  to  talk  to 
'  you  about  my  Foreign  affairs.  If  you  are  going  to  be  in  Lon- 
'  don  for  a  few  days,  I  believe  you  can  be  very  useful  to  me,  at 
'  a  considerable  expense  and  trouble  to  yourself,  in  the  way  of 

•  buying  accoutrements  ;  inter  alia,  a  sword  and  a  saddle, — not, 
'  you  will  understand,  for  my  own  use. 

'  Things  are  going  on  very  well,  but  are  very,  even  fright- 
4  fully  near  ;  only  be  quiet !  Pray  would  you,  in  case  of  neces- 
'  sity,  take  a  free  passage  to  Holland,  next  week  or  the  week 
'  after ;  stay  two  or  three  days,  and  come  back,  all  expenses 

'  paid  ?    If  you  write  to  B at  Cambridge,  tell  him  above 

'  all  things  to  hold  his  tongue.  If  you  are  near  Palace  Yard  to- 
'  morrow  before  two,  pray  come  to  see  me.  Do  not  come  on 
'  purpose ;  especially  as  I  may  perhaps  be  away,  and  at  all 
'  events  shall  not  be  there  until  eleven,  nor  perhaps  till  rather 

•  later. 

'  I  fear  I  shall  have  alarmed  your  Mother  by  my  irruption. 
'  Forgive  me  for  that  and  all  my  exactions  from  you.  If  the 
'  next  month  were  over,  I  should  not  have  to  trouble  any  one. 

'  — Yours  affectionately, 

•J.  STERLING. 

Busy  weeks  indeed;  and  a  glowing  smithy -light  coming 
through  the  chinks  ! — The  romance  of  Arthur  Coningsby  lay 
written,  or  half-written,  in  his  desk  ;  and  here,  in  his  heart  and 
among  his  hands,  was  an  acted  romance  and  unknown  cata- 
strophes keeping  pace  with  that. 

Doubts  from  the  doctors,  for  his  health  was  getting  ominous, 
threw  some  shade  over  the  adventure.  Reproachful  reminis- 
cences of  Coleridge  and  Theosophy  were  natural  too  ;  then  fond 
regrets  for  Literature  and  its  glories  :  if  you  act  your  romance, 


TORRIJOS.  63 

how  can  you  also  write  it  ?  Regrets,  and  reproachful  reminis- 
cences, from  Art  and  Theosophy;  perhaps  some  tenderer  re- 
grets withal.  A  crisis  in  life  had  come  ;  when,  of  innumerable 
possibilities  one  possibility  was  to  be  elected  king,  and  to  swal- 
low all  the  rest,  the  rest  of  course  made  noise  enough,  and 
swelled  themselves  to  their  biggest. 

Meanwhile  the  ship  was  fast  getting  ready  :  on  a.  certain 
day,  it  was  to  drop  quietly  down  the  Thames  ;  then  touch  at 
Deal,  and  take  on  board  Torrijos  and  his  adventurers,  who 
were  to  be  in  waiting  and  on  the  outlook  for  them  there.  Let 
eveiy  man  lay-in  his  accoutrements,  then  ;  let  every  man  make 
his  packages,  his  arrangements  and  farewells.  Sterling  went  to 
take  leave  of  Miss  Barton.  "You  are  going,  then  ;  to  Spain  ? 
"  To  rough  it  amid  the  storms  of  war  and  perilous  insurrection; 
"  and  with  that  weak  health  of  yours  ;  and — we  shall  never  see 
"  you  more,  then  !"  Miss  Barton,  all  her  gaiety  gone,  the  dimp- 
ling softness  become  liquid  sorrow,  and  the  musical  ringing 
voice  one  wail  of  woe,  'burst  into  tears,' — so  I  have  it  on  autho- 
rity : — here  was  one  possibility  about  to  be  strangle*  that  made 
unexpected  noise  !  Sterling's  interview  ended  in  the  offer  of  his 
hand,  and  the  acceptance  of  it ; — any  sacrifice  to  get  rid  of  this 
horrid  Spanish  business,  and  save  the  health  and  life  of  a  gifted 
young  man  so  precious  to  the  world  and  to  another  ! 

'  Ill-health,'  as  often  afterwards  in  Sterling's  life,  when  the  ex- 
cuse was  real  enough  but  not  the  chief  excuse  ;  '  ill-health,  and 
insuperable  obstacles  and  engagements,'  had  to  bear  the  chief 
brunt  in  apologising  :  and,  as  Sterling's  actual  presence,  or  that 
of  any  Englishman  except  Boyd  and  his  money,  was  not  in  the 
least  vital  to  the  adventure,  his  excuse  was  at  once  accepted. 
The  English  connexions  and  subscriptions  are  a  given  fact, 
to  be  presided  over  by  what  English  volunteers  there  are  :  and 
as  for  Englishmen,  the  fewer  Englishmen  that  go,  the  larger 
will  be  the  share  of  influence  for  each.  The  other  adventurers, 
Torrijos  among  them  in  due  readiness,  moved  silently  one  by 
one  down  to  Deal  :  Sterling,  superintending  the  naval  hands, 
on  board  their  ship  in  the  Thames,  was  to  see  the  last  finish 
given  to  everything  in  that  department  ;  then,  on  the  set  even- 
ing, to  drop  down  quietly  to  Deal,  and  there  say  Andadcon  Dios, 
and  return. 


64  JOHN  STERLING. 

Behold !  Just  before  the  set  evening  came,  the  Spanish 
Envoy  at  this  Court  has  got  notice  of  what  is  going  on  ;  the 
Spanish  Envoy,  and  of  course  the  British  Foreign  Secretary, 
and  of  course  also  the  Thames  Police.  Armed  men  spring  sud- 
denly on  board,  one  day,  while  Sterling  is  there  ;  declare  the 
ship  seized  and  embargoed  in  the  King's  name  ;  nobody  on 
board  to  stir  till  he  has  given  some  account  of  himself  in  due 
time  and  place  !  Huge  consternation,  naturally,  from  stem  to 
stern.  Sterling,  whose  presence  of  mind  seldom  forsook  him, 
casts  his  eye  over  the  River  and  its  craft ;  sees  a  wherry,  pri- 
vately signals  it,  drops  rapidly  on  board  of  it :  "  Stop  !"  fiercely 
interjects  the  marine  policeman  from  the  ship's  deck. — "Why 
stop  ?  What  use  have  you  for  me,  or  I  for  you  ?"  and  the  oars 
begin  playing.  —  "Stop,  or  I'll  shoot  you!"  cries  the  marine 
policeman,  drawing  a  pistol. — "  No,  you  won't." — "  I  will !" — 
"  If  you  do  you'll  be  hanged  at  the  next  Maidstone  assizes,  then  ; 
that's  all," — and  Sterling's  wherry  shot  rapidly  ashore  ;  and  out 
of  this  perilous  adventure. 

That  same  night  he  posted  down  to  Deal ;  disclosed  to  the 
Torrijos  pafty  what  catastrophe  had  come.  No  passage  Spain- 
ward  from  the  Thames  ;  well  if  arrestment  do  not  suddenly 
come  from  the  Thames !  It  was  on  this  occasion,  I  suppose, 
that  the  passage  in  the  open  boat  to  St.  Valery  occurred  ; — 
speedy  flight  in  what  boat  or  boats,  open  or  shut,  could  be  got 
at  Deal  on  the  sudden.  Sterling  himself,  according  to  Hare's 
authority,  actually  went  with  them  so  far.  Enough,  they  got 
shipping,  as  private  passengers  in  one  craft  or  the  other  ;  and, 
by  degrees  or  at  once,  arrived  all  at  Gibraltar, — Boyd,  one  or 
two  young  democrats  of  Regent  Street,  the  fifty  picked  Spani- 
ards, and  Torrijos, — safe,  though  without  arms;  still  in  the 
early  part  of  the  year. 

CHAPTER  XL 

MARRIAGE  :    ILL-HEALTH  ;    WEST-INDIES. 

STERLING'S  outlooks  and  occupations,  now  that  his  Spanish 
friends  were  gone,  must  have  been  of  a  rather  miscellaneous 
confused  description.  He  had  the  enterprise  of  a  married  life 
close  before  him  ;  and  as  yet  no  profession,  no  fixed  pursuit 


MARRIAGE  :  ILL-HEALTH  ;  WEST-INDIES.        65 

whatever.  His  health  was  already  very  threatening  ;  often  such 
as  to  disable  him  from  present  activity,  and  occasion  the  gravest 
apprehensions  ;  practically  blocking-up  all  important  courses 
whatsoever,  and  rendering  the  future,  if  even  life  were  length- 
ened and  he  had  any  future,  an  insolubility  for  him.  Parlia- 
ment was  shut,  public  life  was  shut :  Literature, — if,  alas,  any 
solid  fruit  could  lie  in  Literature  ! 

Or  perhaps  one's  health  would  mend,  after  all ;  and  many 
things  be  better  than  was  hoped  !  Sterling  was  not  of  a  de- 
spondent temper,  or  given  in  any  measure  to  lie  down  and  in- 
dolently moan  :  I  fancy  he  walked  briskly  enough  into  this  tem- 
pestuous-looking future  ;  not  heeding  too  much  its  thunderous 
aspects  ;  doing  swiftly,  for  the  day,  what  his  hand  found  to  do. 
Arthur  Coningsby,  I  suppose,  lay  on  the  anvil  at  present;  visits 
to  Coleridge  were  now  again  more  possible  ;  grand  news  from 
Torrijos  might  be  looked  for,  though  only  small  yet  came  : — 
nay  here,  in  the  hot  July,  is  France,  at  least,  all  thrown  into 
volcano  again  !  Here  are  the  miraculous  Three  Days  ;  herald- 
ing, in  thunder,  great  things  to  Torrijos  and  others  ;  filling  with 
babblement  and  vaticination  the  mouths  and  hearts  of  all  de- 
mocratic men. 

So  rolled  along,  in  tumult  of  chaotic  remembrance  and  un- 
certain hope,  in  manifold  emotion,  and  the  confused  struggle 
(for  Sterling  as  for  the  world)  to  extricate  the  New  from  the  fall- 
ing ruins  of  the  Old,  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1 830.  From 
Gibraltar  and  Torrijos  the  tidings  were  vague,  unimportant  and 
discouraging  :  attempt  on  Cadiz,  attempt  on  the  lines  of  St. 
Roch,  those  attempts,  or  rather  resolutions  to  attempt,  had  died 
in  the  birth,  or  almost  before  it.  Men  blamed  Torrijos,  little 
knowing  his  impediments.  Boyd  was  still  patient  at  his  post  : 
others  of  the  young  English  (on  the  strength  of  the  subscribed 
moneys)  were  said  to  be  thinking  of  tours, — perhaps  in  the 
Sierra  Morena  and  neighbouring  Quixote  regions.  From  that 
Torrijos  enterprise  it  did  not  seem  that  anything  considerable 
would  come. 

On  the  edge  of  winter,  here  at  home,  Sterling  was  married: 
'  at  Christchurch,  Marylebone,  2d  November  1 830,'  say  the  re- 
cords. His  blooming,  kindly  and  true-hearted  Wife  had  not 
much  money,  nor  had  he  as  yet  any  :  but  friends  on  both  sides 

F 


66  JOHN  STERLING. 

were  bountiful  and  hopeful ;  had  made-up,  for  the  young  couple, 
the  foundations  of  a  modestly  effective  household  ;  and  in  the 
future  there  lay  more  substantial  prospects.  On  the  finance  side 
Sterling  never  had  anything  to  suffer.  His  Wife,  though  some- 
what languid,  and  of  indolent  humour,  was  a  graceful,  pious- 
minded,  honourable  and  affectionate  woman  ;  she  could  not 
much  support  him  in  the  ever-shifting  struggles  of  his  life,  but 
she  faithfully  attended  him  in  them,  and  loyally  marched  by  his 
side  through  the  changes  and  nomadic  pilgrimings,  of  which 
many  were  appointed  him  in  his  short  course. 

Unhappily  a  few  weeks  after  his  marriage,  and  before  any 
household  was  yet  set  up,  he  fell  dangerously  ill ;  worse  in  health 
than  he  had  ever  yet  been  :  so  many  agitations  crowded  into 
the  last  few  months  had  been  too  much  for  him.  He  fell  into 
dangerous  pulmonary  illness,  sank  ever  deeper ;  lay  for  many 
weeks  in  his  Father's  house  utterly  prostrate,  his  young  Wife 
and  his  Mother  watching  over  him ;  friends,  sparingly  admitted, 
long  despairing  of  his  life.  All  prospects  in  this  world  were 
now  apparently  shut  upon  him. 

After  a  while,  came  hope  again,  and  kindlier  symptoms : 
but  the  doctors  intimated  that  there  lay  consumption  in  the 
question,  and  that  perfect  recovery  was  not  to  be  looked  for. 
For  weeks  he  had  been  confined  to  bed ;  it  was  several  months 
before  he  could  leave  his  sick-room,  where  the  visits  of  a  few 
friends  had  much  cheered  him.  And  now  when  delivered,  re- 
admitted to  the  air  of  day  again, — weak  as  he  was,  and  with 
such  a  liability  still  lurking  in  him, — what  his  young  partner 
and  he  were  to  do,  or  whitherward  to  turn  for  a  good  course  of 
life,  was  by  no  means  too  apparent. 

One  of  his  Mother  Mrs.  Edward  Sterling's  Uncles,  a  Con- 
ingham  from  Deny,  had,  in  the  course  of  his  industrious  and 
adventurous  life,  realised  large  property  in  the  West  Indies, — 
a  valuable  Sugar-estate,  with  its  equipments,  in  the  Island  of 
St.  Vincent ; — from  which  Mrs.  Sterling  and  her  family  were 
now,  and  had  been  for  some  years  before  her  Uncle's  decease, 
deriving  important  benefits.  I  have  heard,  it  was  then  worth 
some  ten  thousand  pounds  a-year  to  the  parties  interested. 
Anthony  Sterling,  John,  and  another  a  cousin  of  theirs  were 
ultimately  to  be  heirs,  in  equal  proportions.  The  old  gentle- 


ISLAND  OF  ST.  VINCENT.  67 

man,  always  kind  to  his  kindred,  and  a  brave  and  solid  man 
though  somewhat  abrupt  in  his  ways,  had  lately  died;  leaving 
a  settlement  to  this  effect,  not  without  some  intricacies,  and 
almost  caprices,  in  the  conditions  attached. 

This  property,  which  is  still  a  valuable  one,  was  Sterling's 
chief  pecuniary  outlook  for  the  distant  future.  Of  course  it  well 
deserved  taking  care  of;  and  if  the  eye  of  the  master  were  upon 
it,  of  course  too  (according  to  the  adage)  the  cattle  would  fatten 
better.  As  the  warm  climate  was  favourable  to  pulmonary 
complaints,  and  Sterling's  occupations  were  so  shattered  to 
pieces  and  his  outlooks  here  so  waste  and  vague,  why  should 
not  he  undertake  this  duty  for  himself  and  others  ? 

It  was  fixed  upon  as  the  eligiblest  course.  A  visit  to  St. 
Vincent,  perhaps  a  permanent  residence  there  :  he  went  into 
the  project  with  his  customary  impetuosity  ;  his  young  Wife 
cheerfully  consenting,  and  all  manner  of  new  hopes  clustering 
round  it.  There  are  the  rich  tropical  sceneries,  the  romance  of 
the  torrid  zone  with  its  new  skies  and  seas  and  lands ;  there  are 
Blacks,  and  the  Slavery  question  to  be  investigated  ;  there  are 
the  bronzed  Whites  and  Yellows,  and  their  strange  new  way  of 
life  :  by  all  means  let  us  go  and  try  ! — Arrangements  being 
completed,  so  soon  as  his  strength  had  sufficiently  recovered, 
and  the  harsh  spring  winds  had  sufficiently  abated,  Sterling 
with  his  small  household  set  sail  for  St.  Vincent ;  and  arrived 
without  accident.  His  first  child,  a  son  Edward,  now  living  and 
grown  to  manhood,  was  born  there,  '  at  Brighton  in  the  Island 
of  St.  Vincent,'  in  the  fall  of  that  year  1 831. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

ISLAND  OF  ST.  VINCENT. 

STERLING  found  a  pleasant  residence,  with  all  its  adjuncts, 
ready  for  him,  at  Colonarie,  in  this  'volcanic  Isle'  under  the  hot 
sun.  An  interesting  Isle :  a  place  of  rugged  chasms,  precipitous 
gnarled  heights,  and  the  most  fruitful  hollows  ;  shaggy  every- 
where with  luxuriant  vegetation  ;  set  under  magnificent  skies, 
in  the  mirror  of  the  summer  seas  ;  offering  everywhere  the 
grandest  sudden  outlooks  and  contrasts.  His  Letters  represent 


68  JOHN  STERLING. 

a  placidly  cheerful  riding  life :  a  pensive  humour,  but  the  thun- 
derclouds all  sleeping  in  the  distance.  Good  relations  with  a. 
few  neighbouring  planters  ;  indifference  to  the  noisy  political 
and  other  agitations  of  the  rest:  friendly,  by  no  means  romantic 
appreciation  of  the  Blacks  ;  quiet  prosperity  economic  and  do- 
mestic: on  the  whole  a  healthy  and  recommendable  way  of  life, 
with  Literature  very  much  in  abeyance  in  it. 

He  writes  to  Mr.  Hare  (date  not  given) :  '  The  landscapes 
'  around  me  here  are  noble  and  lovely  as  any  that  can  be  con- 
'  ceived  on  Earth.  How  indeed  could  it  be  otherwise,  in  a 
'  small  Island  of  volcanic  mountains,  far  within  the  Tropics, 
'  and  perpetually  covered  with  the  richest  vegetation  ?'  The 
moral  aspect  of  things  is  by  no  means  so  good ;  but  neither  is 
that  without  its  fair  features.  '  So  far  as  I  see,  the  Slaves  here 
'  are  cunning,  deceitful  and  idle ;  without  any  great  aptitude  for 
'  ferocious  crimes,  and  with  very  little  scruple  at  committing 
'  others.  But  I  have  seen  them  much  only  in  very  favourable 
'  circumstances.  They  are,  as  a  body,  decidedly  unfit  for  free- 
'  dom  ;  and  if  left,  as  at  present,  completely  in  the  hands  of 
'  their  masters,  will  never  become  so,  unless  through  the  agency 
'  of  the  Methodists.'1 

In  the  Autumn  came  an  immense  hurricane;  with  new  and 
indeed  quite  perilous  experiences  of  West -Indian  life.  This 
hasty  Letter,  addressed  to  his  Mother,  is  not  intrinsically  his 
remarkablest  from  St.  Vincent :  but  the  body  of  fact  delineated 
in  it  being  so  much  the  greatest,  we  will  quote  it  in  preference. 
A  West- Indian  tornado,  as  John  Sterling  witnesses  it,  and 
with  vivid  authenticity  describes  it,  may  be  considered  worth 
looking  at. 

'  To  Mrs.  Sterling,  South  Place,  Knighisbridge,  London. 

'  Brighton,  St.  Vincent,  aSth  August  1831. 

'MY  DEAR  MOTHER, — The  packet  came  in  yesterday;  bring- 
1  ing  me  some  Newspapers,  a  Letter  from  my  Father,  and  one 
'  from  Anthony,  with  a  few  lines  from  you.  I  wrote,  some  days 
'  ago,  a  hasty  Note  to  my  Father,  on  the  chance  of  its  reaching 
'  you  through  Grenada  sooner  than  any  communication  by  the 
1  packet  ;  and  in  it  I  spoke  of  the  great  misfortune  which  had 

1  Biography,  by  Mr.  Hare,  p.  xli. 


ISLAND  OF  ST.  VINCENT.  69 

'  befallen  this  Island  and  Barbadoes,  but  from  which  all  those 
'  you  take  an  interest  in  have  happily  escaped  unhurt. 

'  From  the  day  of  our  arrival  in  the  West  Indies  until  Thurs- 
'  day  the  1 1  th  instant,  which  will  long  be  a  memorable  day  with 
'  us,  I  had  been  doing  my  best  to  get  ourselves  established  com- 
'  fortably  ;  and  I  had  at  last  bought  the  materials  for  making 
'  some  additions  to  the  house.  But  on  the  morning  I  have  men- 
'  tioned,  all  that  I  had  exerted  myself  to  do,  nearly  all  the  pro- 
'  perty  both  of  Susan  and  myself,  and  the  very  house  we  lived 
'  in,  were  suddenly  destroyed  by  a  visitation  of  Providence  far 
'  more  terrible  than  any  I  have  ever  witnessed. 

'  When  Susan  came  from  her  room,  to  breakfast,  at  eight 
'  o'clock,  I  pointed  out  to  her  the  extraordinary  height  and  vio- 
'  lence  of  the  surf,  and  the  singular  appearance  of  the  clouds 
'  of  heavy  rain  sweeping  down  the  valleys  before  us.  At  this 
'  time  I  had  so  little  apprehension  of  what  was  coming,  that  I 
'  talked  of  riding  down  to  the  shore  when  the  storm  should  abate, 
'  as  I  had  never  seen  so  fierce  a  sea.  In  about  a  quarter  of  an 
'  hour  the  House-Negroes  came  in,  to  close  the  outside  shutters 
'  of  the  windows.  They  knew  that  the  plantain-trees  about  the 
'  Negro  houses  had  been  blown  down  in  the  night ;  and  had  told 
'  the  maid-servant  Tyrrell,  but  I  had  heard  nothing  of  it.  A  very 
'  few  minutes  after  the  closing  of  the  windows,  I  found  that  the 
'  shutters  of  Tyrrell's  room,  at  the  south  and  commonly  the 
'  most  sheltered  end  of  the  House,  were  giving  way.  I  tried 
'  to  tie  them ;  but  the  silk  handkerchief  which  I  used  soon  gave 
'  way  ;  and  as  I  had  neither  hammer,  boards  nor  nails  in  the 
'  house,  I  could  do  nothing  more  to  keep  out  the  tempest.  I 
'  found,  in  pushing  at  the  leaf  of  the  shutter,  that  the  wind  re- 
'  sisted,  more  as  if  it  had  been  a  stone  wall  or  a  mass  of  iron, 
'  than  a  mere  current  of  air.  There  were  one  or  two  people  out- 
'  side  trying  to  fasten  the  windows,  and  I  went  out  to  help  ; 
'  but  we  had  no  tools  at  hand  :  one  man  was  blown  down  the 
'  hill  in  front  of  the  house,  before  my  face  ;  and  the  other  and 
'  myself  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  back  again  inside  the 
'  door.  The  rain  on  my  face  and  hands  felt  like  so  much  small 
'  shot  from  a  gun.  There  was  great  exertion  necessary  to  shut 
'  the  door  of  the  house. 

'  The  windows  at  the  end  of  the  large  room  were  now  giving 
'  way ;  and  I  suppose  it  was  about  nine  o'clock,  when  the  hurri- 


70  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  cane  burst  them  in,  as  if  it  had  been  a  discharge  from  a  bat- 
'  tery  of  heavy  cannon.  The  shutters  were  first  forced  open, 
'  and  the  wind  fastened  them  back  to  the  wall ;  and  then  the 
'  panes  of  glass  were  smashed  by  the  mere  force  of  the  gale, 
'  without  anything  having  touched  them.  Even  now  I  was  not 
1  at  all  sure  the  house  would  go.  My  books,  I  saw,  were  lost ; 
'  for  the  rain  poured  past  the  bookcases,  as  if  it  had  been  the 
'  Colonarie  River.  But  we  carried  a  good  deal  of  furniture  into 
'  the  passage  at  the  entrance ;  we  set  Susan  there  on  a  sofa, 
'  and  the  Black  Housekeeper  was  even  attempting  to  get  her 
'  some  breakfast.  The  house,  however,  began  to  shake  so  vio- 
'  lently,  and  the  rain  was  so  searching,  that  she  could  not  stay 
'  there  long.  She  went  into  her  own  room ;  and  I  stayed  to 
'  see  what  could  be  done. 

'  Under  the  forepart  of  the  house,  there  are  cellars  built  of 
'  stone,  but  not  arched.  To  these,  however,  there  was  no  access 
'  except  on  the  outside  ;  and  I  knew  from  my  own  experience 
'  that  Susan  could  not  have  gone  a  step  beyond  the  door,  with- 
'  out  being  carried  away  by  the  storm,  and  probably  killed  on 
'  the  spot.  The  only  chance  seemed  to  be  that  of  breaking 
'  through  the  floor.  But  when  the  old  Cook  and  myself  resolved 
'  on  this,  we  found  that  we  had  no  instrument  with  which  it 
'  would  be  possible  to  do  it.  It  was  now  clear  that  we  had  only 
'  God  to  trust  in.  The  front  windows  were  giving  way  with 
'  successive  crashes,  and  the  floor  shook  as  you  may  have  seen 
'  a  carpet  on  a  gusty  day  in  London.  I  went  into  our  bed-room ; 
'  where  I  found  Susan,  Tyrrell,  and  a  little  Coloured  girl  of 
'  seven  or  eight  years  old  ;  and  told  them  that  we  should  pro- 
'  bably  not  be  alive  in  half  an  hour.  I  could  have  escaped,  if 
'  I  had  chosen  to  go  alone,  by  crawling  on  the  ground  either 
'  into  the  kitchen,  a  separate  stone  building  at  no  great  dis- 
'  tance,  or  into  the  open  fields  away  from  trees  or  houses ;  but 
'  Susan  could  not  have  gone  a  yard.  She  became  quite  calm 
'  when  she  knew  the  worst ;  and  she  sat  on  my  knee  in  what 
'  seemed  the  safest  corner  of  the  room,  while  every  blast  was 
1  bringing  nearer  and  nearer  the  moment  of  our  seemingly  cer- 
'  tain  destruction. 

'  The  house  was  under  two  parallel  roofs ;  and  the  one  next 
'  the  sea,  which  sheltered  the  other,  and  us  who  were  under  the 
4  other,  went  off,  I  suppose  about  ten  o'clock.  After  my  old 


ISLAND  OF  ST.  VINCENT.  71 

'  plan,  I  will  give  you  a  sketch,  from  which  you  may  perceive 
'  how  we  were  situated  : 


I                    t 

T 

b 

—  1  — 

b     b  a- 

r  TIL 

J        1 

1 

r   - 

c 

a  - 

Ct 

j 

"      a 

, 

I 

\ 
\  —  ,  —  1 

.     d 

, 

hn 

I 

The  a,  a  are  the  windows  that  were  first  destroyed  :  b  went 
next  ;  my  books  were  between  the  windows  b,  and  on  the 
wall  opposite  to  them.  The  lines  ^andW  mark  the  directions 
of  the  two  roofs  ;  c  is  the  room  in  which  we  were,  and  2  is  a 
plan  of  it  on  a  larger  scale.  Look  now  at  2  :  a  is  the  bed  ; 
c,  c  the  two  wardrobes  ;  b  the  corner  in  which  we  were.  I 
was  sitting  in  an  arm-chair,  holding  my  Wife  ;  and  Tyrrell 
and  the  little  Bldck  child  were  close  to  us.  We  had  given-up 
all  notion  of  surviving ;  and  only  waited  for  the  fall  of  the  roof 
to  perish  together. 

'  Before  long  the  roof  went.  Most  of  the  materials,  how- 
ever, were  carried  clear  away  :  one  of  the  large  couples  was 
caught  on  the  bed-post  marked  d,  and  held  fast  by  the  iron 
spike  ;  while  the  end  of  it  hung  over  our  heads  :  had  the 
beam  fallen  an  inch  on  either  side  of  the  bed-post,  it  must 
necessarily  have  crushed  us.  The  walls  did  not  go  with  the 
roof ;  and  we  remained  for  half  an  hour,  alternately  praying 
to  God,  and  watching  them  as  they  bent,  creaked,  and 
shivered  before  the  storm. 

'  Tyrrell  and  the  child,  when  the  roof  was  off,  made  their 
way  through  the  remains  of  the  partition,  to  the  outer  door  ; 
and  with  the  help  of  the  people  who  were  looking  for  us,  got 
into  the  kitchen.  A  good  while  after  they  were  gone,  and 
before  we  knew  anything  of  their  fate,  a  Negro  suddenly  came 
upon  us  :  and  the  sight  of  him  gave  us  a  hope  of  safety. 
When  the  people  learned  that  we  were  in  danger,  and  while 
their  own  huts  were  flying  about  their  ears,  they  crowded  to 
help  us  ;  and  the  old  Cook  urged  them  on  to  our  rescue.  He 
made  five  attempts,  after  saving  Tyrrell,  to  get  to  us  ;  and 


72  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  four  times  he  was  blown  down.  The  fifth  time  he,  and  the 
'  Negro  we  first  saw,  reached  the  house.  The  space  they  had 
'  to  traverse  was  not  above  twenty  yards  of  level  ground,  if  so 
'  much.  In  another  minute  or  two,  the  Overseers  and  a  crowd 
1  of  Negroes,  most  of  whom  had  come  on  their  hands  and 
'  knees,  were  surrounding  us  ;  and  with  their  help  Susan  was 
'  carried  round  to  the  end  of  the  house;  where  they  broke-open 
4  the  cellar  window,  and  placed  her  in  comparative  safety.  The 
'  force  of  the  hurricane  was,  by  this  time,  a  good  deal  dimin- 
'  ished,  or  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  stand  before  it. 

'  But  the  wind  was  still  terrific  ;  and  the  rain  poured  into 
'  the  cellars  through  the  floor  above.  Susan,  Tyrrell,  and  a 
'  crowd  of  Negroes  remained  under  it,  for  more  than  two  hours : 
'  and  I  was  long  afraid  that  the  wet  and  cold  would  kill  her,  if 
'  she  did  not  perish  more  violently.  Happily  we  had  wine  and 
'  spirits  at  hand,  and  she  was  much  nerved  by  a  tumbler  of 
1  claret.  As  soon  as  I  saw  her  in  comparative  security,  I  went 
'  off  with  one  of  the  Overseers  down  to  the  Works,  where  the 
1  greater  number  of  the  Negroes  were  collected,  that  we  might 
'  see  what  could  be  done  for  them.  They  were  wretched 
'  enough,  but  no  one  was  hurt ;  and  I  ordered  them  a  dram 
1  apiece,  which  seemed  to  give  them  a  good  deal  of  consolation. 

'  Before  I  could  make  my  way  back,  the  hurricane  became 
'  as  bad  as  at  first  ;  and  I  was  obliged  to  take  shelter  for  half 
'  an  hour  in  a  ruined  Negro  house.  This,  however,  was  the 
1  last  of  its  extreme  violence.  By  one  o'clock,  even  the  rain 
'  had  in  a  great  degree  ceased  ;  and  as  only  one  room  of  the 
'  house,  the  one  marked/I  was  standing,  and  that  rickety, — I 
'  had  Susan  carried  in  a  chair  down  the  hill,  to  the  Hospital ; 
'  where,  in  a  small  paved  unlighted  room,  she  spent  the  next 
'  twenty-four  hours.  She  was  far  less  injured  than  might  have 
'  been  expected  from  such  a  catastrophe. 

'  Next  day,  I  had  the  passage  at  the  entrance  of  the  house 
'  repaired  and  roofed  ;  and  we  returned  to  the  ruins  of  our 
'  habitation,  still  encumbered  as  they  were  with  the  wreck  of 
'  almost  all  we  were  possessed  of.  The  walls  of  the  part  of  the 
'  house  next  the  sea  were  carried  away,  in  less  I  think  than 
'  half  an  hour  after  we  reached  the  cellar  :  when  I  had  leisure 
'  to  examine  the  remains  of  the  house,  I  found  the  floor  strewn 
'  with  fragments  of  the  building,  and  with  broken  furniture  ; 


ISLAND  OF  ST.  VINCENT.  73 

'  and  our  books  all  soaked  as  completely  as  if  they  had  been 
'  for  several  hours  in  the  sea. 

'  In  the  course  of  a  few  days  I  had  the  other  room,  g, 
'  which  is  under  the  same  roof  as  the  one  saved,  rebuilt  ;  and 
'  Susan  stayed  in  this  temporary  abode  for  a  week, — when  we 
'  left  Colonarie,  and  came  to  Brighton.  Mr.  Munro's  kindness 
'  exceeds  all  precedent.  We  shall  certainly  remain  here  till  my 
'  Wife  is  recovered  from  her  confinement.  In  the  mean  while 
'  we  shall  have  a  new  house  built,  in  which  we  hope  to  be  well 
1  settled  before  Christmas. 

'  The  roof  was  half  blown  off  the  kitchen,  but  I  have  had  it 
'  mended  already  ;  the  other  offices  were  all  swept  away.  The 
'  gig  is  much  injured  ;  and  my  horse  received  a  wound  in  the 
'  fall  of  the  stable,  from  which  he  will  not  be  recovered  for  some 
'  weeks :  in  the  mean  time  I  have  no  choice  but  to  buy  another, 
'  as  I  must  go  at  least  once  or  twice  a  week  to  Colonarie,  be- 
'  sides  business  in  Town.  As  to  our  own  comforts,  we  can 
'  scarcely  expect  ever  to  recover  from  the  blow  that  has  now 
'  stricken  us.  No  money  would  repay  me  for  the  loss  of  my 
'  books,  of  which  a  large  proportion  had  been  in  my  hands  for 
'  so  many  years  that  they  were  like  old  and  faithful  friends,  and 
'  of  which  many  had  been  given  me  at  different  times  by  the 
'  persons  in  the  world  whom  I  most  value. 

'  But  against  all  this  I  have  to  set  the  preservation  of  our 
'  lives,  in  a  way  the  most  awfully  providential ;  and  the  safety 
'  of  every  one  on  the  Estate.  And  I  have  also  the  great  satis- 
'  faction  of  reflecting  that  all  the  Negroes  from  whom  any 
'  assistance  could  reasonably  be  expected,  behaved  like  so 
'  many  Heroes  of  Antiquity  ;  risking  their  lives  and  limbs  for 
'  us  and  our  property,  while  their  own  poor  houses  were  flying 
'  like  chaff  before  the  hurricane.  There  are  few  White  people 
'  here  who  can  say  as  much  for  their  Black  dependents  ;  and 
'  the  force  and  value  of  the  relation  between  Master  and  Slave 
'  has  been  tried  by  the  late  calamity  on  a  large  scale. 

'  Great  part  of  both  sides  of  this  Island  has  been  laid  com- 
'  pletely  waste.  The  beautiful  wide  and  fertile  Plain  called  the 
'  Charib  Country,  extending  for  many  miles  to  the  north  of 
'  Colonarie,  and  formerly  containing  the  finest  sets  of  works 
'  and  best  dwelling-houses  in  the  Island,  is,  I  am  told,  com- 
1  pletely  desolate  :  on  several  estates  not  a  roof  even  of  a 


74  JOHN  STERLING. 

4  Negro  hut  standing.  In  the  embarrassed  circumstances  of 
'  many  of  the  proprietors,  the  ruin  is,  I  fear,  irreparable. — At 
'  Colonarie  the  damage  is  serious,  but  by  no  means  desperate. 
'  The  crop  is  perhaps  injured  ten  or  fifteen  per  cent.  The  roofs 
'  of  several  large  buildings  are  destroyed,  but  these  we  are 
'  already  supplying  ;  and  the  injuries  done  to  the  cottages  of 
1  the  Negroes  are,  by  this  time,  nearly  if  not  quite  remedied. 

'  Indeed,  all  tl:at  has  been  suffered  in  St.  Vincent  appears 
1  nothing  when  compared  with  the  appalling  loss  of  property 
'  and  of  human  lives  at  Barbadoes.  There  the  Town  is  little 
'  but  a  heap  of  ruins,  and  the  corpses  are  reckoned  by  thou- 
'  sands  ;  while  throughout  the  Island  there  are  not,  I  believe, 
'  ten  estates  on  which  the  buildings  are  standing.  The  Elliotts, 
'  from  whom  we  have  heard,  are  living  with  all  their  family  in 
'  a  tent ;  and  may  think  themselves  wonderfully  saved,  when 
'  whole  families  round  them  were  crushed  at  once  beneath  their 
'  houses.  Hugh  Barton,  the  only  officer  of  the  Garrison  hurt, 
'  has  broken  his  arm,  and  we  know  nothing  of  his  prospects  of 
'  recovery.  The  more  horrible  misfortune  of  Barbadoes  is 
'  partly  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  of  the  hurricane  having 
'  begun  there  during  the  night.  The  flatness  of  the  surface  in 
'  that  Island  presented  no  obstacle  to  the  wind,  which  must, 
'  however,  I  think  have  been  in  itself  more  furious  than  with  us. 
'  No  other  island  has  suffered  considerably. 

'  I  have  told  both  my  Uncle  and  Anthony  that  I  have 
'  given  you  the  details  of  our  recent  history  ; — which  are  not 
'  so  pleasant  that  I  should  wish  to  write  them  again.  Perhaps 
'  you  will  be  good  enough  to  let  them  see  this,  as  soon  as 
'  you  and  my  Father  can  spare  it.  *  *  *  I  am  ever,  dearest 
'  Mother, — your  grateful  and  affectionate, 

•JOHN  STERLING.' 

This  Letter,  I  observe,  is  dated  28th  August  1831  ;  which 
is  otherwise  a  day  of  mark  to  the  world  and  me,  — the  Poet 
Goethe's  last  birthday.  While  Sterling  sat  in  the  Tropical 
solitudes,  penning  this  history,  little  European  Weimar  had  its 
carriages  and  state-carriages  busy  on  the  streets,  and  was  astir 
with  compliments  and  visiting-cards,  doing  its  best,  as  heretofore, 
on  behalf  of  a  remarkable  day  ;  and  was  not,  for  centuries  or 
tens  of  centuries,  to  see  the  like  of  it  again ! — 


A  CATASTROPHE.  75 

At  Brighton,  the  hospitable  home  of  those  Munroes,  our 
friends  continued  for  above  two  months.  Their  first  child, 
Kdward,  as  above  noticed,  was  born  here,  'I4th  October  1831  ;' 
— and  now  the  poor  lady,  safe  from  all  her  various  perils,  could 
return  to  Colonarie  under  good  auspices. 

It  was  in  this  year  that  I  first  heard  definitely  of  Sterling 
as  a  contemporary  existence  ;  and  laid-up  some  note  and  out- 
line of  him  in  my  memory,  as  of  one  whom  I  might  yet  hope 
to  know.  John  Mill,  Mrs.  Austin  and  perhaps  other  friends, 
spoke  of  him  with  great  affection  and  much  pitying  admira- 
tion ;  and  hoped  to  see  him  home  again,  under  better  omens, 
from  over  the  seas.  As  a  gifted  amiable  being,  of  a  certain 
radiant  tenuity  and  velocity,  too  thin  and  rapid  and  diffusive, 
in  danger  of  dissipating  himself  into  the  vague,  or  alas  into 
death  itself:  it  was  so  that,  like  a  spot  of  bright  colours,  rather 
than  a  portrait  with  features,  he  hung  occasionally  visible  in 
my  imagination. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

A  CATASTROPHE. 

THE  ruin  of  his  house  had  hardly  been  repaired,  when  there 
arrived  out  of  Europe  tidings  which  smote  as  with  a  still  more 
fatal  hurricane  on  the  four  corners  of  his  inner  world,  and 
awoke  all  the  old  thunders  that  lay  asleep  on  his  horizon  there. 
Tidings,  at  last  of  a  decisive  nature,  from  Gibraltar  and  the 
Spanish  democrat  adventure.  This  is  what  the  Newspapers 
had  to  report, — the  catastrophe  at  once,  the  details  by  degrees, 
— from  Spain  concerning  that  affair,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
new  year  1832. 

Torrijos,  as  we  have  seen,  had  hitherto  accomplished  as 
good  as  nothing,  except  disappointment  to  his  impatient  fol- 
lowers, and  sorrow  and  regret  to  himself.  Poor  Torrijos,  on 
arriving  at  Gibraltar  with  his  wild  band,  and  coming  into  con- 
tact with  the  rough  fact,  had  found  painfully  how  much  his  ima- 
gination had  deceived  him.  The  fact  lay  round  him  haggard 
and  ironbound  ;  flatly  refusing  to  be  handled  according  to  his 
scheme  of  it.  No  Spanish  soldiery  nor  citizenry  showed  the 
least  disposition  to  join  him  ;  on  the  contrary  the  official 


76  JOHN  STERLING. 

Spaniards  of  that  coast  seemed  to  have  the  watchfulest  eye  on 
all  his  movements,  nay  it  was  conjectured  they  had  spies  in 
Gibraltar  who  gathered  his  very  intentions  and  betrayed  them. 
This  small  project  of  attack,  and  then  that  other,  proved  futile, 
or  was  abandoned  before  the  attempt.  Torrijos  had  to  lie  pain- 
fully within  the  lines  of  Gibraltar, — his  poor  followers  reduced 
to  extremity  of  impatience  and  distress  ;  the  British  Governor 
too,  though  not  unfriendly  to  him,  obliged  to  frown.  As  for  the 
young  Cantabs,  they,  as  was  said,  had  wandered  a  little  over 
the  South  border  of  romantic  Spain ;  had  perhaps  seen  Seville, 
Cadiz,  with  picturesque  views,  since  not  with  belligerent  ones  ; 
and  their  money  being  done,  had  now  returned  home.  So  had 
it  lasted  for  eighteen  months. 

The  French  Three  Days  breaking  out  had  armed  the  Guer- 
rillero  Mina,  armed  all  manner  of  democratic  guerrieros  and 
guerrilleros  ;  and  considerable  clouds  of  Invasion,  from  Spanish 
exiles,  hung  minatory  over  the  North  and  North-East  of  Spain, 
supported  by  the  new-born  French  Democracy,  so  far  as  pri- 
vately possible.  These  Torrijos  had  to  look  upon  with  inex- 
pressible feelings,  and  take  no  hand  in  supporting  from  the 
South  ;  these  also  he  had  to  see  brushed  away,  successively 
abolished  by  official  generalship  ;  and  to  sit  within  his  lines,  in 
the  painfulest  manner,  unable  to  do  anything.  The  fated,  gal- 
lant-minded, but  too  headlong  man.  At  length  the  British  Go- 
vernor himself  was  obliged,  in  official  decency,  and  as  is  thought 
on  repeated  remonstrance  from  his  Spanish  official  neighbours, 
to  signify  how  indecorous,  improper  and  impossible  it  was  to 
harbour  within  one's  lines  such  explosive  preparations,  once 
they  were  discovered,  against  allies  in  full  peace  with  us, — the 
necessity,  in  fact,  there  was  for  the  matter  ending.  It  is  said, 
he  offered  Torrijos  and  his  people  passports,  and  British  pro- 
tection, to  any  country  of  the  world  except  Spain  :  Torrijos  did 
not  accept  the  passports  ;  spoke  of  going  peaceably  to  this 
place  or  to  that ;  promised  at  least,  what  he  saw  and  felt  to  be 
clearly  necessary,  that  he  would  soon  leave  Gibraltar.  And  he 
did  soon  leave  it  ;  he  and  his,  Boyd  alone  of  the  Englishmen 
being  now  with  him. 

It  was  on  the  last  night  of  November  1831,  that  they  all 
set  forth  ;  Torrijos  with  Fifty-five  companions  ;  and  in  two 
small  vessels  committed  themselves  to  their  nigh-desperate  for- 


A  CATASTROPHE.  77 

tune.  No  sentry  or  official  person  had  noticed  them  ;  it  was 
from  the  Spanish  Consul,  next  morning,  that  the  British  Go- 
vernor first  heard  they  were  gone.  The  British  Governor  knew 
nothing  of  them  ;  but  apparently  the  Spanish  officials  were 
much  better  informed.  Spanish  guardships,  instantly  awake, 
gave  chase  to  the  two  small  vessels,  which  were  making  all  sail 
towards  Malaga  ;  and,  on  shore,  all  manner  of  troops  and  de- 
tached parties  were  in  motion,  to  render  a  retreat  to  Gibraltar 
by  land  impossible. 

Crowd  all  sail  for  Malaga,  then  ;  there  perhaps  a  regiment 
will  join  us  ;  there, — or  if  not,  we  are  but  lost  !  Fancy  need 
not  paint  a  more  tragic  situation  than  that  of  Torrijos,  the  un- 
fortunate gallant  man,  in  the  gray  of  this  morning,  first  of  De- 
cember 1831, — his  last  free  morning.  Noble  game  is  afoot, 
afoot  at  last ;  and  all  the  hunters  have  him  in  their  toils. — The 
guardships  gain  upon  Torrijos  ;  he  cannot  even  reach  Malaga  ; 
has  to  run  ashore  at  a  place  called  Fuengirola,  not  far  from 
that  city  ; — the  guardships  seizing  his  vessels,  so  soon  as  he  is 
disembarked.  The  country  is  all  up  ;  troops  scouring  the  coast 
everywhere  :  no  possibility  of  getting  into  Malaga  with  a  party 
of  Fifty-five.  He  takes  possession  of  a  farmstead  (Ingles,  the 
place  is  called)  ;  barricades  himself  there,  but  is  speedily  be- 
leaguered with  forces  hopelessly  superior.  He  demands  to 
treat  ;  is  refused  all  treaty  ;  is  granted  six  hours  to  consider, 
shall  then  either  surrender  at  discretion,  or  be  forced  to  do  it. 
Of  course  he  docs  it  having  no  alternative  ;  and  enters  Malaga 
a  prisoner,  all  his  followers  prisoners.  Here  had  the  Torrijos 
Enterprise,  and  all  that  was  embarked  upon  it,  finally  arrived. 

Express  is  sent  to  Madrid ;  express  instantly  returns  : 
"  Military  execution  on  the  instant ;  give  them  shriving  if  they 
"  want  it ;  that  done,  fusillade  them  all."  So  poor  Torrijos 
and  his  followers,  the  whole  Fifty-six  of  them,  Robert  Boyd  in- 
cluded, meet  swift  death  in  Malaga.  In  such  manner  rushes- 
down  the  curtain  on  them  and  their  affair  ;  they  vanish  thus 
on  a  sudden  ;  rapt  away  as  in  black  clouds  of  fate.  Poor  Boyd, 
Sterling's  cousin,  pleaded  his  British  citizenship  ;  to  no  pur- 
pose :  it  availed  only  to  his  dead  body,  this  was  delivered  to 
the  British  Consul  for  interment,  and  only  this.  Poor  Madam 
Torrijos,  hearing,  at  Paris  where  she  now  was,  of  her  husband's 
capture,  hurries  towards  Madrid  to  solicit  mercy ;  whither  also 


78  JOHN  STERLING. 

messengers  from  Lafayette  and  the  French  Government  were 
hurrying,  on  the  like  errand  :  at  Bayonne,  news  met  the  poor 
lady  that  it  was  already  all  over,  that  she  was  now  a  widow, 
and  her  husband  hidden  from  her  for  ever. — Such  was  the 
handsel  of  the  new  year  1832  for  Sterling  in  his  West-Indian 
solitudes. 

Sterling's  friends  never  heard  of  these  affairs  ;  indeed  we 
were  all  secretly  warned  not  to  mention  the  name  of  Torrijos 
in  his  hearing,  which  accordingly  remained  strictly  a  forbidden 
subject.  His  misery  over  this  catastrophe  was  known,  in  his 
own  family,  to  have  been  immense.  He  wrote  to  his  Brother 
Anthony  :  "I  hear  the  sound  of  that  musketry  ;  it  is  as  if  the 
bullets  were  tearing  my  own  brain."  To  figure  in  one's  sick 
and  excited  imagination  such  a  scene  of  fatal  man-hunting,  lost 
valour  hopelessly  captured  and  massacred  ;  and  to  add  to  it, 
that  the  victims  are  not  men  merely,  that  they  are  noble  and 
dear  forms  known  lately  as  individual  friends  :  what  a  Dance 
of  the  Furies  and  wild-pealing  Dead-march  is  this,  for  the  mind 
of  a  loving,  generous  and  vivid  man  !  Torrijos  getting  ashore 
at  Fuengirola ;  Robert  Boyd  and  others  ranked  to  die  on  the 
esplanade  at  Malaga — Nay  had  not  Sterling,  too,  been  the  in- 
nocent yet  heedless  means  of  Boyd's  embarking  in  this  enter- 
prise ?  By  his  own  kinsman  poor  Boyd  had  been  witlessly 
guided  into  the  pitfalls.  "  I  hear  the  sound  of  that  musketry  ; 
it  is  as  if  the  bullets  were  tearing  my  own  brain  !" 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

PAUSE. 

THESE  thoughts  dwelt  long  with  Sterling  ;  and  for  a  good 
while,  I  fancy,  kept  possession  of  the  proscenium  of  his  mind  ; 
madly  parading  there,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else, — colouring 
all  else  with  their  own  black  hues.  He  was  young,  rich  in  the 
power  to  be  miserable  or  otherwise  ;  and  this  was  his  first  grand 
sorrow  which  had  now  fallen  upon  him. 

An  important  spiritual  crisis,  coming  at  any  rate  in  some 
form,  had  hereby  suddenly  in  a  very  sad  form  come.  No  doubt, 


PAUSE.  79 

as  youth  was  passing  into  manhood  in  these  Tropical  seclu- 
sions, and  higher  wants  were  awakening  in  his  mind,  and  years 
and  reflection  were  adding  new  insight  and  admonition,  much 
in  his  young  way  of  thought  and  action  lay  already  under  ban 
with  him,  and  repentances  enough  over  many  things  were  not 
wanting.  But  here  on  a  sudden  had  all  repentances,  as  it  were, 
dashed  themselves  together  into  one  grand  whirlwind  of  re- 
pentance ;  and  his  past  life  was  fallen  wholly  as  into  a  state  of 
reprobation.  A  great  remorseful  misery  had  come  upon  him. 
Suddenly,  as  with  a  sudden  lightning-stroke,  it  had  kindled  into 
conflagration  all  the  ruined  structure  of  his  past  life  ;  such  ruin 
had  to  blaze  and  flame  round  him,  in  the  painfulest  manner, 
till  it  went  out  in  black  ashes.  His  democratic  philosophies, 
and  mutinous  radicalisms,  alreadyfallingdoomed  in  his  thoughts, 
had  reached  their  consummation  and  final  condemnation  here. 
It  was  all  so  rash,  imprudent,  arrogant,  all  that ;  false,  or  but 
half-true  ;  inapplicable  wholly  as  a  rule  of  noble  conduct; — and 
it  has  ended  thus.  Wo  on  it  !  Another  guidance  must  be 
found  in  life,  or  life  is  impossible  ! — 

It  is  evident,  Sterling's  thoughts  had  already,  since  the  old 
days  of  the  'black  dragoon,'  much  modified  themselves.  We 
perceive  that,  by  mere  increase  of  experience  and  length  of 
time,  the  opposite  and  much  deeper  side  of  the  question,  which 
also  has  its  adamantine  basis  of  truth,  was  in  turn  coming  into 
play  ;  and  in  fine  that  a  Philosophy  of  Denial,  and  world  illu- 
minated merely  by  the  flames  of  Destruction,  could  never  have 
permanently  been  the  resting-place  of  such  a  man.  Those  pil- 
grimings  to  Coleridge,  years  ago,  indicate  deeper  wants  begin- 
ning to  be  felt,  and  important  ulterior  resolutions  becoming 
inevitable  for  him.  If  in  your  own  soul  there  is  any  tone  of 
the  '  Eternal  Melodies,'  you  cannot  live  forever  in  those  poor 
outer,  transitory  grindings  and  discords  ;  you  will  have  to 
struggle  inwards  and  upwards,  in  search  of  some  diviner  home 
for  yourself ! — Coleridge's  prophetic  moonshine,  Torrijos's  sad 
tragedy  :  those  were  important  occurrences  in  Sterling's  life. 
But,  on  the  whole,  there  was  a  big  Ocean  for  him,  with  im- 
petuous Gulf-streams,  and  a  doomed  voyage  in  quest  of  the 
Atlantis,  before  either  of  those  arose  as  lights  on  the  horizon. 
As  important  beacon-lights  let  us  count  them  nevertheless  ; — 
signal-dates  they  form  to  us,  at  lowest.  We  may  reckon  this 


8o  JOHN  STERLING. 

Torrijos  tragedy  the  crisis  of  Sterling's  history  ;  the  turning- 
point,  which  modified,  in  the  most  important  and  by  no  means 
wholly  in  the  most  favourable  manner,  all  the  subsequent  stages 
of  it. 

Old  Radicalism  and  mutinous  audacious  Ethnicism  having 
thus  fallen  to  wreck,  and  a  mere  black  world  of  misery  and  re- 
morse now  disclosing  itself,  whatsoever  of  natural  piety  to  God 
and  man,  whatsoever  of  pity  and  reverence,  of  awe  and  devout 
hope  was  in  Sterling's  heart  now  awoke  into  new  activity  ;  and 
strove  for  some  due  utterance  and  predominance.  His  Letters, 
in  these  months,  speak  of  earnest  religious  studies  and  efforts  ; 
— of  attempts  by  prayer  and  longing  endeavour  of  all  kinds,  to 
struggle  his  way  into  the  temple,  if  temple  there  were,  and  there 
find  sanctuary.1  The  realities  were  grown  so  haggard;  life  a 
field  of  black  ashes,  if  there  rose  no  temple  anywhere  on  it  ! 
Why,  like  a  fated  Orestes,  is  man  so  whipt  by  the  Furies,  and 
driven  madly  hither  and  thither,  if  it  is  not  even  that  he  may 
seek  some  shrine,  and  there  make  expiation  and  find  deliver- 
ance ? 

In  these  circumstances,  what  a  scope  for  Coleridge's  philo- 
sophy, above  all!  "If  the  bottled  moonshine  be  actually  sub- 
"  stance  ?  Ah,  could  one  but  believe  in  a  Church  while  finding 
"  it  incredible  !  What  is  faith  ;  what  is  conviction,  credibility, 
"  insight  ?  Can  a  thing  be  at  once  known  for  true,  and  known 
"  for  false  ?  '  Reason,'  '  understanding  :'  is  there,  then,  such  an 
"  internecine  war  between  these  two  ?  It  was  so  Coleridge  ima- 
"  gined  it,  the  wisest  of  existing  men  !" — No,  it  is  not  an  easy 
matter  (according  to  Sir  Kenelm  Digby),  this  of  getting-up  your 
'  astral  spirit'  of  a  thing,  and  setting  it  in  action,  when  the  thing 
itself  is  well  burnt  to  ashes.  Poor  Sterling  ;  poor  sons  of  Adam 
in  general,  in  this  sad  age  of  cobwebs,  worn-out  symbolisms, 
reminiscences  and  simulacra !  Who  can  tell  the  struggles  of 
poor  Sterling,  and  his  pathless  wanderings  through  these  things ! 
Long  afterwards,  in  speech  with  his  brother,  he  compared  his 
case  in  this  time  to  that  of  "a  young  lady  who  has  tragically 
"  lost  her  lover,  and  is  willing  to  be  half-hoodwinked  into  a 
"  convent,  or  in  any  noble  or  quasi-noble  way  to  escape  from 
"  a  world  which  has  become  intolerable." 

1  Hare,  pp.  xliii.-xlvi. 


BONN;  HERSTMONCEUX.  Si 

During  the  summer  of  1832,  I  find  traces  of  attempts  to- 
wards Anti-Slavery  Philanthropy ;  shadows  of  extensive  schemes 
in  that  direction.  Half-desperate  outlooks,  it  is  likely,  towards 
the  refuge  of  Philanthropism,  as  a  new  chivalry  of  life.  These 
took  no  serious  hold  of  so  clear  an  intellect ;  but  they  hovered 
now  artd  afterwards  as  day-dreams,  when  life  otherwise  was 
shorn  of  aim ; — mirages  in  the  desert,  which  are  found  not  to 
be  lakes  when  you  put  your  bucket  into  them.  One  thing  was 
clear,  the  sojourn  in  St.  Vincent  was  not  to  last  much  longer. 

Perhaps  one  might  get  some  scheme  raised  into  life,  in 
Downing  Street,  for  universal  Education  to  the  Blacks,  prepa- 
ratory to  emancipating  them  ?  There  were  a  noble  work  for  a 
man  !  Then  again  poor  Mrs.  Sterling's  health,  contrary  to  his 
own,  did  not  agree  with  warm  moist  climates.  And  again  &c. 
&c.  These  were  the  outer  surfaces  of  the  measure  ;  the  uncon- 
scious pretext  under  which  it  showed  itself  to  Sterling  and  was 
shown  by  him  :  but  the  inner  heart  and  determining  cause  o: 
it  (as  frequently  in  Sterling's  life,  and  in  all  our  lives)  was  not 
these.  In  brief,  he  had  had  enough  of  St.  Vincent.  The  strang- 
ling oppressions  of  his  soul  were  too  heavy  for  him  there.  So- 
lution lay  in  Europe,  or  might  lie  ;  not  in  these  remote  solitudes 
of  the  sea, — where  no  shrine  or  saint's  well  is  to  be  looked  for, 
no  communing  of  pious  pilgrims  journeying  together  towards  a 
shrine. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

BONN  ;    HERSTMONCEUX. 

AFTER  a  residence  of  perhaps  fifteen  months  Sterling  quitted 
St.  Vincent,  and  never  returned.  He  reappeared  at  his  Father's 
house,  to  the  joy  of  English  friends,  in  August  1832  ;  well  im- 
proved in  health,  and  eager  for  English  news  ;  but,  beyond 
vague  schemes  and  possibilities,  considerably  uncertain  what 
was  next  to  be  done. 

After  no  long  stay  in  this  scene, — finding  Downing  Street 
dead  as  stone  to  the  Slave-Education  and  to  all  other  schemes, 
— he  \vent  across,  with  his  wife  and  child,  to  Germany  ;  pur- 
posing to  make  not  so  much  a  tour  as  some  loose  ramble,  or 
desultory  residence  in  that  country,  in  the  Rhineland  first  of  all. 

G 


82  JOHN  STERLING. 

Here  was  to  be  hoped  the  picturesque  in  scenery,  which  he 
much  affected  ;  here  the  new  and  true  in  speculation,  which  lie 
inwardly  longed  for  and  wanted  greatly  more  ;  at  all  events, 
here  as  readily  as  elsewhere  might  a  temporary  household  be 
struck  up,  under  interesting  circumstances. — I  conclude  he  went 
across  in  the  Spring  of  1833  ;  perhaps  directly  after  Arthur 
Coningsby  had  got  through  the  press.  This  Novel,  which,  as 
we  have  said,  was  begun  two  or  three  years  ago,  probably  on 
his  cessation  from  the  Atlientzum,  and  was  mainly  finished,  I 
think,  before  the  removal  to  St.  Vincent,  had  by  this  time  fallen 
as  good  as  obsolete  to  his  own  mind  ;  and  its  destination  now, 
whether  to  the  press  or  to  the  fire,  was  in  some  sort  a  matter 
at  once  of  difficulty  and  of  insignificance  to  him.  At  length  de- 
ciding for  the  milder  alternative,  he  had  thrown  in  some  com- 
pleting touches  here  and  there, — especially,  as  I  conjecture,  a 
proportion  of  Colridgean  moonshine  at  the  end  ;  and  so  sent  it 
forth. 

It  was  in  the  sunny  days,  perhaps  in  May  or  June  of  this 
year,  that  Arthur  Coningsby  reached  my  own  hand,  far  off  amid 
the  heathy  wildernesses  ;  sent  by  John  Mill :  and  I  can  still 
recollect  the  pleasant  little  episode  it  made  in  my  solitude  there. 
The  general  impression  it  left  on  me,  which  has  never  since 
been  renewed  by  a  second  reading  in  whole  or  in  part,  was  the 
certain  prefigurement  to  myself,  more  or  less  distinct,  of  an  opu- 
lent, genial  and  sunny  mind,  but  misdirected,  disappointed,  ex- 
perienced in  misery  ; — nay  crude  and  hasty  ;  mistaking  for  a 
solid  outcome  from  its  woes  what  was  only  to  me  a  gilded  va- 
cuity. The  hero  an  ardent  youth,  representing  Sterling  himself, 
plunges  into  life  such  as  we  now  have  it  in  these  anarchic  times, 
with  the  radical,  utilitarian,  or  mutinous  heathen  theory,  which 
is  the  readiest  for  inquiring  souls  ;  finds,  by  various  courses  of 
adventure,  utter  shipwreck  in  this  ;  lies  broken,  very  wretched : 
that  is  the  tragic  nodus,  or  apogee  of  his  life-course.  In  this 
mood  of  mind,  he  clutches  desperately  towards  some  new  me- 
thod (recognisable  as  Coleridge's)  of  laying  hand  again  on  the 
old  Church,  which  has  hitherto  been  extraneous  and  as  if  non- 
extant  to  his  way  of  thought ;  makes  out,  by  some  Coleridgean 
legerdemain,  that  there  actually  is  still  a  Church  for  him  ;  that 
this  extant  Church,  which  he  long  took  for  an  extinct  shadow, 
is  not  such,  but  a  substance  ;  upon  which  he  can  anchor  him* 


BONN;   HERSTMONCEUX.  83 

self  amid  the  storms  of  fate  ; — and  he  does  so,  even  taking 
orders  in  it,  I  think.  Such  could  by  no  means  seem  to  me  the 
true  or  tenable  solution.  Here  clearly,  struggling  amid  the  tu- 
mults, was  a  lovable  young  fellow-soul ;  who  had  by  no  means 
yet  got  to  land  ;  but  of  whom  much  might  be  hoped,  if  he  ever 
did.  Some  of  the  delineations  are  highly  pictorial,  flooded  with 
a  deep  ruddy  effulgence  ;  betokening  much  wealth,  in  the  crude 
or  the  ripe  state.  The  hope  of  perhaps,  one  day,  knowing  Ster- 
ling, was  welcome  and  interesting  to  me.  Arthur  Coningsby, 
struggling  imperfectly  in  a  sphere  high  above  circulating-library 
novels','  gained  no  notice  whatever  in  that  quarter  ;  gained,  I 
suppose  in  a  few  scattered  heads,  some  such  recognition  as  the 
above  ;  and  there  rested.  Sterling  never  mentioned  the  name 
of  it  in  my  hearing,  or  would  hear  it  mentioned. 

In  those  very  days  while  Arthur  Coningsby  was  getting  read 
amid  the  Scottish  moors,  'in  June  1833,'  Sterling,  at  Bonn  in 
the  Rhine-country,  fell-in  with  his  old  tutor  and  friend,  the  Re- 
verend Julius  Hare  ;  one  with  whom  he  always  delighted  to 
communicate,  especially  on  such  topics  as  then  altogether  occu- 
pied him,  A  man  of  cheerful  serious  character,  of  much  ap- 
proved accomplishment,  of  perfect  courtesy  ;  surely  of  much 
piety,  in  all  senses  of  that  word.  Mr.  Hare  had  quitted  his  scho- 
lastic labours  and  distinctions,  some  time  ago;  the  call  or  op- 
portunity for  taking  orders  having  come  ;  and  as  Rector  of 
Herstmonceux  in  Sussex,  a  place  patrimonially  and  otherwise 
endeared  to  him,  was  about  entering,  under  the  best  omens,  on 
a  new  course  of  life.  He  was  now  on  his  return  from  Rome, 
and  a  visit  of  some  length  to  Italy.  Such  a  meeting  could  not 
but  be  welcome  and  important  to  Sterling  in  such  a  mood. 
They  had  much  earnest  conversation,  freely  communing  on  the 
highest  matters  ;  especially  of  Sterling's  purpose  to  undertake 
the  clerical  profession,  in  which  course  his  reverend  friend  could 
not  but  bid  him  good  speed. 

It  appears,  Sterling  already  intimated  his  intention  to  be- 
come a  clergyman  :  He  would  study  theology,  biblicalities,  per- 
fect himself  in  the  knowledge  seemly  or  essential  for  his  new 
course  ; — read  diligently  '  for  a  year  or  two  in  some  good  Ger- 
man University,'  then  seek  to  obtain  orders  :  that  was  his  plan. 
To  which  Mr.  Hare  gave  his  hearty  Euge ;  adding  that  if  his 


84  JOHN  STERLING. 

own  curacy  happened  then  to  be  vacant,  he  should  be  well 
pleased  to  have  Sterling  in  that  office.  So  they  parted. 

'A  year  or  two'  of  serious  reflection  'in  some  good  German 
University,'  or  any  where  in  the  world,  might  have  thrown  much 
elucidation  upon  these  confused  strugglings  and  purposings  of 
Sterling's,  and  probably  have  spared  him  some  confusion  in  his 
subsequent  life.  But  the  talent  of  waiting  was,  of  all  others,  the 
one  he  wanted  most.  Impetuous  velocity,  all-hoping  headlong 
alacrity,  what  we  must  call  rashness  and  impatience,  character- 
ised him  in  most  of  his  important  and  unimportant  procedures; 
from  the  purpose  to  the  execution  there  was  usually  but  one  big 
leap  with  him.  A  few  months  after  Mr.  Hare  was  gone,  Ster- 
ling wrote  that  his  purposes  were  a  little  changed  by  the  late 
meeting  at  Bonn  ;  that  he  now  longed  to  enter  the  Church 
straightway  :  that  if  the  Herstmonceux  Curacy  was  still  vacant, 
and  the  Rector's  kind  thought  towards  him  still  held,  he  would 
instantly  endeavour  to  qualify  himself  for  that  office. 

Answer  being  in  the  affirmative  on  both  heads,  Sterling  re- 
turned to  England  ;  took  orders, — '  ordained  deacon  at  Chi- 
chester  on  Trinity  Sunday  in  1 834'  (he  never  became  techni- 
cally priest)  : — and  so,  having  fitted  himself  and  family  with  a 
reasonable  house,  in  one  of  those  leafy  lanes  in  quiet  Herstmon- 
ceux, on  the  edge  of  Pevensey  Level,  he  commenced  the  duties 
of  his  Curacy. 

The  bereaved  young  lady  has  taken  the  veil,  then  !  Even  so. 
"  Life  is  growing  all  so  dark  and  brutal ;  must  be  redeemed 
"  into  human,  if  it  will  continue  life.  Some  pious  heroism,  to 
"  give  a  human  colour  to  life  again,  on  any  terms," — even  on 
impossible  ones  ! 

To  such  length  can  transcendental  moonshine,  cast  by  some 
morbidly  radiating  Coleridge  into  the  chaos  of  a  fermenting  life, 
act  magically  there,  and  produce  divulsions  and  convulsions  and  , 
diseased  developments.  So  dark  and  abstruse,  without  lamp  or 
authentic  finger-post,  is  the  course  of  pious  genius  towards  the 
Eternal  Kingdoms  grown.  No  fixed  highway  more  ;  the  old 
spiritual  highways  and  recognised  paths  to  the  Eternal,  now  all 
torn-up  and  flung  in  heaps,  submerged  in  unutterable  boiling 
mud-oceans  of  Hypocrisy  and  Unbelievability,  of  brutal  living 
Atheism  and  damnable  dead  putrescent  Cant :  surely  a  tragic 


BONN;  HERSTMONCEUX.  85 

pilgrimage  for  all  mortals  ;  Darkness,  and  the  mere  shadow  of 
Death,  enveloping  all  things  from  pole  to  pole  ;  and  in  the 
raging  gulf-currents,  offering  us  will-o'-wisps  for  loadstars, — in- 
timating that  there  are  no  stars,  nor  ever  were,  except  certain 
Old-Jew  ones  which  have  now  gone  out.  Once  more,  a  tragic 
pilgrimage  for  all  mortals  ;  and  for  the  young  pious  soul,  winged 
with  genius,  and  passionately  seeking  land,  and  passionately 
abhorrent  of  floating  carrion  withal,  more  tragical  than  for  any ! 
— A  pilgrimage  we  must  all  undertake  nevertheless,  and  make 
the  best  of  with  our  respective  means.  Some  arrive;  a  glorious 
few  :  many  must  be  lost, — go  down  upon  the  floating  wreck 
which  they  took  for  land.  Nay,  courage  !  These  also,  so  far 
as  there  was  any  heroism  in  them,  have  bequeathed  their  life  as  a 
contribution  to  us,  have  valiantly  laid  their  bodies  in  the  chasm 
for  us  :  of  these  also  there  is  no  ray  of  heroism  lost, — and,  on 
the  whole,  what  else  of  them  could  or  should  be  '  saved'  at  any 
time  ?  Courage,  and  ever  Forward  ! 

Concerning  this  attempt  of  Sterling's  to  find  sanctuary  in 
the  old  Church,  and  desperately  grasp  the  hem  of  her  garment 
in  such  manner,  there  will  at  present  be  many  opinions  :  and 
mine  must  be  recorded  here  in  flat  reproval  of  it,  in  mere  pity- 
ing condemnation  of  it,  as  a  rash,  false,  unwise  and  unpermitted 
step.  Nay,  among  the  evil  lessons  of  his  Time  to  poor  Sterling, 
I  cannot  but  account  this  the  worst ;  properly  indeed,  as  we 
may  say,  the  apotheosis,  the  solemn  apology  and  consecration, 
of  all  the  evil  lessons  that  were  in  it  to  him.  Alas,  if  we  did 
remember  the  divine  and  awful  nature  of  God's  Truth,  and  had 
not  so  forgotten  it  as  poor  doomed  creatures  never  did  before, 
— should  we,  durst  we  in  our  most  audacious  moments,  think 
of  wedding  it  to  the  world's  Untruth,  which  is  also,  like  all  un- 
truths, the  Devil's  ?  Only  in  the  world's  last  lethargy  can  such 
things  be  done,  and  accounted  safe  and  pious  !  Fools  !  "  Do 
you  think  the  Living  God  h  a  buzzard  idol,"  sternly  asks  Milton, 
that  you  dare  address  Him  in  this  manner  ? — Such  darkness, 
thick  sluggish  clouds  of  cowardice  and  oblivious  baseness,  have 
accumulated  on  us  :  thickening  as  if  towards  the  eternal  sleep ! 
It  is  not  now  known,  what  never  needed  proof  or  statement 
before,  that  Religion  is  not  a  doubt ;  that  it  is  a  certainty, — or 
else  a  mockery  and  horror.  That  none  or  all  of  the  many  things 
we  are  in  doubt  about,  and  need  to  have  demonstrated  and  rcn- 


86  JOHN  STERLING. 

dered  probable,  can  by  any  alchymy  be  made  a  '  Religion'  for 
us  ;  but  are  and  must  continue  a  baleful,  quiet  or  unquiet,  Hy- 
pocrisy for  us  ;  and  bring — salvation,  do  we  fancy  ?  I  think,  it 
is  another  thing  they  will  bring,  and  are,  on  all  hands,  visibly 
bringing,  this  good  while  ! — 

The  time,  then,  with  its  deliriums,  has  done  its  worst  for 
poor  Sterling.  Into  deeper  aberration  it  cannot  lead  him  ;  this 
is  the  crowning  error.  Happily,  as  beseems  the  superlative  of 
errors,  it  was  a  very  brief,  almost  a  momentary  one.  In  June 
1 834  Sterling  dates  as  installed  at  Herstmonceux  ;  and  is  fling- 
ing, as  usual,  his  whole  soul  into  the  business  ;  successfully  so 
far  as  outward  results  could  show  :  but  already  in  September, 
he  begins  to  have  misgivings ;  and  in  February  following,  quits 
it  altogether, — the  rest  of  his  life  being,  in  great  part,  a  labori- 
ous effort  of  detail  to  pick  the  fragments  of  it  off  him,  and  be 
free  of  it  in  soul  as  well  as  in  title. 

At  this  the  extreme  point  of  spiritual  deflexion  and  depres- 
sion, when  the  world's  madness,  unusually  impressive  on  such  a 
man,  has  done  its  very  worst  with  him,  and  in  all  future  errors 
whatsoever  he  will  be  a  little  less  mistaken,  we  may  close  the 
First  Part  of  Sterling's  Life. 


PART   SECOND. 

CHAPTER  I. 

CURATE. 

BY  Mr.  Hare's  account,  no  priest  of  any  Church  could  more 
fervently  address  himself  to  his  functions  than  Sterling  now  did. 
He  went  about  among  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  and  those  that 
had  need  of  help  ;  zealously  forwarded  schools  and  benefi- 
cences ;  strove,  with  his  whole  might,  to  instruct  and  aid  who- 
soever suffered  consciously  in  body,  or  still  worse  unconsciously 
in  mind.  He  had  charged  himself  to  make  the  Apostle  Paul 
his  model ;  the  perils  and  voyagings  and  ultimate  martyrdom 
of  Christian  Paul,  in  those  old  ages,  on  the  great  scale,  were  to 
be  translated  into  detail,  and  become  the  practical  emblem  of 
Christian  Sterling  on  the  coast  of  Sussex  in  this  new  age.  '  It 
'  would  be  no  longer  from  Jerusalem  to  Damascus,'  writes 
Sterling,  '  to  Arabia,  to  Derbe,  Lystra,  Ephesus,  that  he  would 
'  travel  :  but  each  house  of  his  appointed  Parish  would  be 
'  to  him  what  each  of  those  great  cities  was,  —  a  place 
'  where  he  would  bend  his  whole  being,  and  spend  his  heart 
'  for  the  conversion,  purification,  elevation  of  those  under  his 
'  influence.  The  whole  man  would  be  forever  at  work  for  this 
'  purpose  ;  head,  heart,  knowledge,  time,  body,  possessions,  all 
'  would  be  directed  to  this  end.'  A  high  enough  model  set 
before  one  : — how  to  be  realised  ! — Sterling  hoped  to  realise  it, 
to  struggle  towards  realising  it,  in  some  small  degree.  This  is 
Mr.  Hare's  report  of  him  : 

'  He  was  continually  devising  some  fresh  scheme  for  im- 
'  proving  the  condition  of  the  Parish.  His  aim  was  to  awaken 
'  the  minds  of  the  people,  to  arouse  their  conscience,  to  call 
'  forth  their  sense  of  moral  responsibility,  to  make  them  feel 


88  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  their  own  sinfulness,  their  need  of  redemption,  and  thus  lead 
'  them  to  a  recognition  of  the  Divine  Love  by  which  that  re- 
'  demption  is  offered  to  us.  In  visiting  them  he  was  diligent 
'  in  all  weathers,  to  the  risk  of  his  own  health,  which  was  greatly 
'  impaired  thereby  ;  and  his  gentleness  and  considerate  care  for 
'  the  sick  won  their  affection  ;  so  that,  though  his  stay  was 
'  very  short,  his  name  is  still,  after  a  dozen  years,  cherished  by 
1  many.' 

How  beautiful  would  Sterling  be  in  all  this  ;  rushing  for- 
ward like  a  host  towards  victory  ;  playing  and  pulsing  like  sun- 
shine or  soft  lightning  ;  busy  at  all  hours  to  perform  his  part 
in  abundant  and  superabundant  measure  !  '  Of  that  which  it 
'  was  to  me  personally,'  continues  Mr.  Hare,  '  to  have  such  a 
'  fellow-labourer,  to  live  constantly  in  the  freest  communion 
'  with  such  a  friend,  I  cannot  speak.  He  came  to  me  at  a 
'  time  of  heavy  affliction,  just  after  I  had  heard  that  the 
'  Brother,  who  had  been  the  sharer  of  all  my  thoughts  and  feel- 
'  ings  from  childhood,  had  bid  farewell  to  his  earthly  life  at 
'  Rome  ;  and  thus  he  seemed  given  to  me  to  make-up  in  some 
'  sort  for  him  whom  I  had  lost.  Almost  daily  did  I  look  out 
'  for  his  usual  hour  of  coming  to  me,  and  watch  his  tall  slender 
'  form  walking  rapidly  across  the  hill  in  front  of  my  window  ; 
'  with  the  assurance  that  he  was  coming  to  cheer  and  brighten, 
'  to  rouse  and  stir  me,  to  call  me  up  to  some  height  of  feeling, 
'  or  down  to  some  depth  of  thought.  His  lively  spirit,  respond- 
'  ing  instantaneously  to  every  impulse  of  Nature  and  Art ;  his 
'  generous  ardour  in  behalf  of  whatever  is  noble  and  true  ;  his 
'  scorn  of  all  meanness,  of  all  false  pretences  and  conventional 
'  beliefs,  softened  as  it  was  by  compassion  for  the  victims  of 
'  those  besetting  sins  of  a  cultivated  age  ;  his  never-flagging 
'  impetuosity  in  pushing  onward  to  some  unattained  point  of 
'  duty  or  of  knowledge  :  all  this,  along  with  his  gentle,  almost 
'  reverential  affectionateness  towards  his  former  tutor,  rendered 
'  my  intercourse  with  him  an  unspeakable  blessing  ;  and  time 
'  after  time  has  it  seemed  to  me  that  his  visit  had  been  like  a 
'  shower  of  rain,  bringing  down  freshness  and  brightness  on  a 
'  dusty  roadside  hedge.  By  him  too  the  recollection  of  these 
'  our  daily  meetings  was  cherished  till  the  last.'1 

There  are  many  poor  people  still  at  Hcrstmonceux  who 
1  Hare,  xlviii.  liv.  Iv. 


CURATE.  89 

affectionately  remember  him ;  Mr.  Hare  especially  makes  men- 
tion of  one  good  man  there,  in  his  young  days  'a  poor  cobbler,' 
and  now  advanced  to  a  much  better  position,  who  gratefully 
ascribes  this  outward  and  the  other  improvements  in  his  life  to 
Sterling's  generous  encouragement  and  charitable  care  for  him. 
Such  was  the  curate-life  at  Herstmonceux.  So,  in  those  actual 
leafy  lanes,  on  the  edge  of  Pevensey  Level,  in  this  new  age,  did 
our  poor  New  Paul  (on  hest  of  certain  oracles)  diligently  study 
to  comport  himself, — and  struggle  with  all  his  might  not  to  be 
a  moonshine  shadow  of  the  First  Paul. 

It  was  in  this  summer  of  1834, — month  of  May,  shortly 
after  arriving  in  London, — that  I  first  saw  Sterling's  Father.  A 
stout  broad  gentleman  of  sixty,  perpendicular  in  attitude,  rather 
showily  dressed,  and  of  gracious,  ingenious  and  slightly  ela- 
borate manners.  It  was  at  Mrs.  Austin's  in  Bayswater  ;  he 
was  just  taking  leave  as  I  entered,  so  our  interview  lasted  only 
a  moment :  but  the  figure  of  the  man,  as  Sterling's  father,  had 
already  an  interest  for  me,  and  I  remember  the  time  well. 
Captain  Edward  Sterling,  as  we  formerly  called  him,  had  now 
quite  dropt  the  military  title,  nobody  even  of  his  friends  now 
remembering  it ;  and  was  known,  according  to  his  wish,  in 
political  and  other  circles,  as  Mr.  Sterling,  a  private  gentleman 
of  some  figure.  Over  whom  hung,  moreover,  a  kind  of  mys- 
terious nimbus  as  the  principal  or  one  of  the  principal  writers 
in  the  Times,  which  gave  an  interesting  chiaroscuro  to  his 
character  in  society.  A  potent,  profitable,  but  somewhat  ques- 
tionable position  ;  of  which,  though  he  affected,  and  sometimes 
with  anger,  altogether  to  disown  it,  and  rigorously  insisted  on 
the  rights  of  anonymity,  he  was  not  unwilling  to  take  the 
honours  too  :  the  private  pecuniary  advantages  were  very  un- 
deniable ;  and  his  reception  in  the  Clubs,  and  occasionally  in 
higher  quarters,  was  a  good  deal  modelled  on  the  universal 
belief  in  it. 

John  Sterling  at  Herstmonceux  that  afternoon,  and  his 
Father  here  in  London,  would  have  offered  strange  contrasts  to 
an  eye  that  had  seen  them  both.  Contrasts,  and  yet  concord- 
ances. They  were  two  very  different-looking  men,  and  were 
following  two  very  different  modes  of  activity  that  afternoon. 
And  yet  with  a  strange  family  likeness,  too,  both  in  the  men 


go  JOHN  STERLING. 

and  their  activities ;  the  central  impulse  in  each,  the  faculties 
applied  to  fulfil  said  impulse,  not  at  all  dissimilar, — as  grew 
visible  to  me  on  farther  knowledge. 


CHAPTER  II. 

NOT  CURATE. 

THUS  it  went  on  for  some  months  at  Herstmonceux  ;  but 
thus  it  could  not  last.  We  said  there  were  already  misgivings 
as  to  health  £c.  in  September  :l  that  was  but  the  fourth  month, 
for  it  had  begun  only  in  June.  The  like  clouds  of  misgiving, 
flights  of  dark  vapour,  chequering  more  and  more  the  bright 
sky  of  this  promised  land,  rose  heavier  and  rifer  month  after 
month  ;  till  in  February  following,  that  is  in  the  eighth  month 
from  starting,  the  sky  had  grown  quite  overshaded  ;  and  poor 
Sterling  had  to  think  practically  of  departure  from  his  promised 
land  again,  finding  that  the  goal  of  his  pilgrimage  was  not  there. 
Not  there,  wherever  it  may  be  !  March  again,  therefore ;  the 
abiding  city,  and  post  at  which  we  can  live  and  die,  is  still 
ahead  of  us,  it  would  appear  ! 

'  Ill-health'  was  the  external  cause  ;  and,  to  all  parties  con- 
cerned, to  Sterling  himself  I  have  no  doubt  as  completely  as  to 
any,  the  one  determining  cause.  Nor  was  the  ill-health  want- 
ing ;  it  was  there  in  too  sad  reality.  And  yet  properly  it  was 
not  there  as  the  burden  ;  it  was  there  as  the  last  ounce  which 
broke  the  camel's  back.  I  take  it,  in  this  as  in  other  cases 
known  to  me,  ill-health  was  not  the  primary  cause  but  rather 
the  ultimate  one,  the  summing-up  of  innumerable  far  deeper 
conscious  and  unconscious  causes, — the  cause  which  could 
boldly  show  itself  on  the  surface,  and  give  the  casting  vote. 
Such  was  often  Sterling's  way,  as  one  could  observe  in  such 
cases  :  though  the  most  guileless,  undeceptive  and  transparent 
of  men,  he  had  a  noticeable,  almost  childlike  faculty  of  self- 
deception,  and  usually  substituted  for  the  primary  determining 
motive  and  set  of  motives,  some  ultimate  ostensible  one,  and 
gave  that  out  to  himself  and  others  as  the  ruling  impulse  for 
important  changes  in  life.  As  is  the  way  with  much  more 

*  Hare,  p.  Ivi. 


NOT  CURATE.  91 

ponderous  and  deliberate  men  ;  —  as  is  the  way,  in  a  degree, 
with  all  men  ! 

Enough,  in  February  1834,  Sterling  came  up  to  London, 
to  consult  with  his  physicians, -^and  in  fact  in  all  ways  to  con- 
sider with  himself  and  friends, — what  was  to  be  done  in  regard 
to  this  Herstmonceux  business.  The  oracle  of  the  physicians, 
like  that  of  Delphi,  was  not  exceedingly  determinate  :  but  it  did 
bear,  what  was  a  sufficiently  undeniable  fact,  that  Sterling's  con- 
stitution, with  a  tendency  to  pulmonary  ailments,  was  ill-suited 
for  the  office  of  a  preacher  ;  that  total  abstinence  from  preach- 
ing for  a  year  or  two  would  clearly  be  the  safer  course.  To 
which  effect  he  writes  to  Mr.  Hare  with  a  tone  of  sorrowful  agi- 
tation ;  gives-uphis  clerical  duties  at  Herstmonceux  ; — and  never 
resumed  them  there  or  elsewhere.  He  had  been  in  the  Church 
eight  months  in  all :  a  brief  section  of  his  life,  but  an  import- 
ant one,  which  coloured  several  of  his  subsequent  years,  and 
now  strangely  colours  all  his  years  in  the  memory  of  some. 

This  we  may  account  the  second  grand  crisis  of  his  His- 
tory. Radicalism,  not  long  since,  had  come  to  its  consumma- 
tion, and  vanished  from  him  in  a  tragic  manner.  "  Not  by 
Radicalism  is  the  path  to  Human  Nobleness  for  me  !"  And 
here  now  had  English  Priesthood  risen  like  a  sun,  over  the 
waste  ruins  and  extinct  volcanoes  of  his  dead  Radical  world, 
with  promise  of  new  blessedness  and  healing  under  its  wings  ; 
and  this  too  has  soon  found  itself  an  illusion  :  "  Not  by  Priest- 
hood either  lies  the  way,  then.  Once  more,  where  does  the 
way  lie  !" — To  follow  illusions  till  they  burst  and  vanish  is  the 
lot  of  all  new  souls  who,  luckily  or  lucklessly,  are  left  to  their 
own  choice  in  starting  on  this  Earth.  The  roads  are  many  ; 
the  authentic  finger-posts  are  few, — never  fewer  than  in  this 
era,  when  in  so  many  senses  the  waters  are  out.  Sterling  of 
all  men  had  the  quickest  sense  for  nobleness,  heroism  and  the 
human  stimwum  bonum  ;  the  liveliest  headlong  spirit  of  adven- 
ture and  audacity  ;  few  gifted  living  men  less  stubbornness  of 
perseverance.  Illusions,  in  his  chase  of  the  snmmuin  bonum, 
were  not  likely  to  be  wanting ;  aberrations,  and  wasteful 
changes  of  course,  were  likely  to  be  many  !  It  is  in  the  his- 
tory of  such  vehement,  trenchant,  far-shining  and  yet  intrinsi- 
cally light  and  volatile  souls,  missioned  into  this  epoch  to  seek 
their  way  there,  that  we  best  see  what  a  confused  epoch  it  is. 


92  JOHN  STERLING. 

This  clerical  aberration, — for  such  it  undoubtedly  was  in 
Sterling, — we  have  ascribed  to  Coleridge  ;  and  do  clearly  think 
that  had  there  been  no  Coleridge,  neither  had  this  been, — nor 
had  English  Puseyism  or  some  other  strange  enough  universal 
portents  been.  Nevertheless,  let  us  say  farther  that  it  lay  partly 
in  the  general  bearing  of  the  world  for  such  a  man.  This  battle, 
universal  in  our  sad  epoch  of  '  all  old  things  passing  away' 
against  'all  things  becoming  new/  has  its  summary  and  ani- 
mating heart  in  that  of  Radicalism  against  Church  ;  there,  as 
in  its  flaming  core,  and  point  of  focal  splendour,  does  the  heroic 
worth  that  lies  in  each  side  of  the  quarrel  most  clearly  disclose 
itself;  and  Sterling  was  the  man,  above  many,  to  recognise 
such  worth  on  both  sides.  Natural  enough,  'in  such  a  one, 
that  the  light  of  Radicalism  having  gone  out  in  darkness  for 
him,  the  opposite  splendour  should  next  rise  as  the  chief,  and 
invite  his  loyalty  till  it  also  failed.  In  one  form  or  the  other, 
such  an  aberration  was  not  unlikely  for  him.  But  an  aberra- 
tion, especially  in  this  form,  we  may  certainly  call  it.  No  man 
of  Sterling's  veracity,  had  he  clearly  consulted  his  own  heart, 
or  had  his  own  heart  been  capable  of  clearly  responding,  and 
not  been  dazzled  and  bewildered  by  transient  fantasies  and 
theosophic  moonshine,  could  have  undertaken  this  function. 
His  heart  would  have  answered:  "  No,  thou  canst  not.  What 
"  is  incredible  to  thee,  thou  shalt  not,  at  thy  soul's  peril,  attempt 
"  to  believe  ! — Elsewhither  for  a  refuge,  or  die  here.  Go  to 
"  Perdition  if  thou  must, — but  not  with  a  lie  in  thy  mouth  ;  by 
"  the  Eternal  Maker,  no  !" 

Alas,  once  more  !  How  are  poor  mortals  whirled  hither 
and  thither  in  the  tumultuous  chaos  of  our  era  ;  and,  under  the 
thick  smoke-canopy  which  has  eclipsed  all  stars,  how  do  they 
fly  now  after  this  poor  meteor,  now  after  that ! — Sterling  aban- 
doned his  clerical  office  in  February  1835  ;  having  held  it,  and 
ardently  followed  it,  so  long  as  we  say, — eight  calendar  months 
in  all. 

It  was  on  this  his  February  expedition  to  London  that  I 
first  saw  Sterling, — at  the  India  House  incidentally,  one  after- 
noon, where  I  found  him  in  company  with  John  Mill,  whom  I 
happened  like  himself  to  be  visiting  for  a  few  minutes.  The 
sight  of  one  whose  fine  qualities  I  had  often  heard  of  lately,  was 


NOT  CURATE.  93 

interesting  enough  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  proved  not  disappoint- 
ing, though  it  was  the  translation  of  dream  into  fact,  that  is  of 
poetry  into  prose,  and  showed  its  unrhymed  side  withal.  A 
loose,  careless-looking,  thin  figure,  in  careless  dim  costume,  sat, 
in  a  lounging  posture,  carelessly  and  copiously  talking.  I  was 
struck  with  the  kindly  but  restless  swift-glancing  eyes,  which 
looked  as  if  the  spirits  were  all  out  coursing  like  a  pack  of  merry 
eager  beagles,  beating  every  bush.  The  brow,  rather  slop- 
ing in  form,  was  not  of  imposing  character,  though  again  the 
head  was  longish,  which  is  always  the  best  sign  of  intellect ; 
the  physiognomy  in  general  indicated  animation  rather  than 
strength. 

We  talked  rapidly  of  various  unmemorable  things  :  I  re- 
member coming  on  the  Negroes,  and  noticing  that  Sterling's 
notions  on  the  Slavery  Question  had  not  advanced  into  the 
stage  of  mine.  In  reference  to  the  question  whether  an  "en- 
gagement for  life,"  on  just  terms,  between  parties  who  are  fixed 
in  the  character  of  master  and  servant,  as  the  Whites  and  the 
Negroes  are,  is  not  really  better  than  one  from  day  to  day, — 
he  said  with  a  kindly  jeer,  "  I  would  have  the  Negroes  them- 
selves consulted  as  to  that !" — and  would  not  in  the  least  be- 
lieve that  the  Negroes  were  by  no  means  final  or  perfect  judges 
of  it. — His  address,  I  perceived,  was  abrupt,  unceremonious  ; 
probably  not  at  all  disinclined  to  logic,  and  capable  of  dashing 
in  upon  you  like  a  charge  of  cossacks,  on  occasion  :  but  it  was 
also  eminently  ingenious,  social,  guileless.  We  did  all  very  well 
together  :  and  Sterling  and  I  walked  westward  in  company, 
choosing  whatever  lanes  or  quietest  streets  there  were,  as  far 
as  Knightsbridge  where  our  roads  parted  ;  talking  on  moralities, 
theological  philosophies  ;  arguing  copiously,  but  except  in  opi- 
nion not  disagreeing. 

In  his  notions  on  such  subjects,  the  expected  Coleridge  cast 
of  thought  was  very  visible  ;  and  he  seemed  to  express  it  even 
with  exaggeration,  and  in  a  fearless  dogmatic  manner.  Identity 
of  sentiment,  difference  of  opinion  :  these  are  the  known  ele- 
ments of  a  pleasant  dialogue.  We  parted  with  the  mutual  wish 
to  meet  again  ; — which  accordingly,  at  his  Father's  house  and 
at  mine,  we  soon  repeatedly  did  ;  and  already,  in  the  few  days 
before  his  return  to  Herstmonceux,  had  laid  the  foundations  of 
a  frank  intercourse,  pointing  towards  pleasant  intimacies  both 


94  JOHN  STERLING. 

with  himself  and  with  his  circle,  which  in  the  future  were  abun- 
dantly fulfilled.  His  Mother,  essentially  and  even  professedly 
"  Scotch,"  took  to  my  Wife  gradually  with  a  most  kind  maternal 
relation  ;  his  Father,  a  gallant  showy  stirring  gentleman,  the 
Magus  of  the  Times,  had  talk  and  argument  ever  ready,  was  an 
interesting  figure,  and  more  and  more  took  interest  in  us.  We 
had  unconsciously  made  an  acquisition,  which  grew  richer  and 
wholesomer  with  every  new  year ;  and  ranks  now,  seen  in  the 
pale  moonlight  of  memory,  and  must  ever  rank,  among  the  pre- 
cious possessions  of  life. 

Sterling's  bright  ingenuity,  and  also  his  audacity,  velocity 
and  alacrity,  struck  me  more  and  more.  It  was,  I  think,  on  the 
occasion  of  a  party  given  one  of  these  evenings  at  his  Father's, 
where  I  remember  John  Mill,  John  Crawford,  Mrs.  Crawford, 
and  a  number  of  young  and  elderly  figures  of  distinction, — that 
a  group  having  formed  on  the  younger  side  of  the  room,  and 
transcendentalisms  and  theologies  forming  the  topic,  a  number 
of  deep  things  were  said  in  abrupt  conversational  style,  Sterling 
in  the  thick  of  it.  For  example,  one  sceptical  figure  praised  the 
Church  of  England,  in  Hume's  phrase,  'as  a  Church  tending  to 
keep-down  fanaticism,'  and  rccommendable  for  its  very  indiffer- 
ency;  whereupon  a  transcendental  figure  urges  him  :  "You  are 
"  afraid  of  the  horse's  kicking  :  but  will  you  sacrifice  all  qualities 
"  to  being  safe  from  that  ?  Then  get  a  dead  horse.  None  com- 
"  parable,  to  that  for  not  kicking  in  your  stable  !"  Upon  which, 
a  laugh  ;  with  new  laughs  on  other  the  like  occasions  ; — and  at 
last,  in  the  fire  of  some  discussion,  Sterling,  who  was  unusually 
eloquent  and  animated,  broke-out  with  this  wild  phrase,  "  I  could 
"  plunge  into  the  bottom  of  Hell,  if  I  were  sure  of  finding  the 
"  Devil  there  and  getting  him  strangled  !"  Which  produced 
the  loudest  laugh  of  all ;  and  had  to  be  repeated,  on  Mrs.  Craw- 
ford's inquiry,  to  the  house  at  large  ;  and,  creating  among  the 
elders  a  kind  of  silent  shudder, — though  we  urged  that  the  feat 
would  really  be  a  good  investment  of  human  industry, — checked 
or  stopt  these  theologic  thunders  for  the  evening.  I  still  re- 
member Sterling  as  in  one  of  his  most  animated  moods  that 
evening.  He  probably  returned  to  Herstmonceux  next  day,  where 
he  proposed  yet  to  reside  for  some  indefinite  time. 

Arrived  at  Herstmonceux,  he  had  not  forgotten  us.  One  of 
his  Letters  written  there  soon  after  was  the  following,  which 


NOT  CURATE.  95 

much  entertained  me,  in  various  ways.  It  turns  on  a  poor  Book 
of  mine,  called  Sartor  Resartns ;  which  was  not  then  even  a 
Book,  but  was  still  hanging  desolately  under  bibliopolic  diffi- 
culties, now  in  its  fourth  or  fifth  year,  on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
river,  as  a  mere  aggregate  of  Magazine  Articles  ;  having  at  last 
been  slit  into  that  form,  and  lately  completed  so,  and  put  to- 
gether into  legibility.  I  suppose  Sterling  had  borrowed  it  of  me. 
The  adventurous  hunter  spirit  which  had  started  such  a  be- 
mired  Ancrochs,  or  Urus  of  the  German  woods,  and  decided  on 
chasing  that  as  game,  struck  me  not  a  little  ; — and  the  poor 
Wood-Ox,  so  bemired  in  the  forests,  took  it  as  a  compliment 
rather : 

'  To  Thomas  Carlyle,  Esq.,  Chelsea,  London. 

'  Herstmonceux  near  Battle,  2gth  May  1835. 

'  MY  DEAR  CARLYLE,— -I  have  now  read  twice,  with  care, 
'  the  wdndrous  account  of  Teufelsdrockh  and  his  Opinions  ;  and 
'  I  need  not  say  that  it  has  given  me  much  to  think  of.  It  falls- 
'  in  with  the  feelings  and  tastes  which  were,  for  years,  the  rul- 
'  ing  ones  of  my  life  ;  but  which  you  Avill  not  be  angry  with 
1  me  when  I  say  that  I  am  infinitely  and  hourly  thankful  for 
1  having  escaped  from.  Not  that  I  think  of  this  state  of  mind 
'  as  one  with  which  I  have  no  longer  any  concern.  The  sense 
'  of  a  oneness  of  life  and  power  in  all  existence  ;  and  of  a  bound- 
'  less  exuberance  of  beauty  around  us,  to  which  most  men  arc 
'  well-nigh  dead,  is  a  possession  which  no  one  that  has  ever  en- 
'  joyed  it  would  wish  to  lose.  When  to  this  we  add  the  deep 
'  feeling  of  the  difference  between  the  actual  and  the  ideal  in 
'  Nature,  and  still  more  in  Man  ;  and  bring  in,  to  explain  this, 
'  the  principle  of  duty,  as  that  which  connects  us  with  a  possible 
'  Higher  State,  and  sets  us  in  progress  towards  it, — we  have 
'  a  cycle  of  thoughts  which  was  the  whole  spiritual  empire  of 
'  the  wisest  Pagans,  and  which  might  well  supply  food  for  the 
'  wide  speculations  and  richly  creative  fancy  of  Teufelsdrockh, 
'  or  his  prototype  Jean  Paul. 

'  How  then  comes  it,  we  cannot  but  ask,  that  these  ideas, 
'  displayed  assuredly  with  no  want  of  eloquence,  vivacity  or 
'  earnestness,  have  found,  unless  I  am  much  mistaken,  so  little 
'  acceptance  among  the  best  and  most  energetic  minds  in  this 
'  country?  In  a  country  where  millions  read  the  Bible,  and 


96  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  thousands  Shakspcarc  ;  where  Wordsworth  circulates  through 
'  book-clubs  and  drawing-rooms  ;  where  there  are  innumerable 
'  admirers  of  your  favourite  Burns  ;  and  where  Coleridge,  by 
'  sending  from  his  solitude  the  voice  of  earnest  spiritual  instruc- 
'  tion,  came  to  be  beloved,  studied  and  mourned  for,  by  no 
'  small  or  careless  school  of  disciples  ? — To  answer  this  ques- 
'  tion  would,  of  course,  require  more  thought  and  knowledge 
'  than  I  can  pretend  to  bring  to  it.  But  there  are  some  points 
'  on  which  I  will  venture  to  say  a  few  words. 

'  In  the  first  place,  as  to  the  form  of  composition, — which 
'  may  be  called,  I  think,  the  Rhapsodico-Reflective.  In  this  the 
1  Sartor  Resartus  resembles  some  of  the  master-works  of  human 
'  invention,  which  have  been  acknowledged  as  such  by  many 
'  generations  ;  and  especially  the  works  of  Rabelais,  Montaigne, 
'  Sterne  and  Swift.  There  is  nothing  I  know  of  in  Antiquity 
'  like  it.  That  which  comes  nearest  is  perhaps  the  Platonic 
'  Dialogue.  But  of  this,  although  there  is  something  of  the 
'  playful  and  fanciful  on  the  surface,  there  is  in  reality  neither 
'  in  the  language  (which  is  austerely  determined  to  its  end), 
'  nor  in  the  method  and  progression  of  the  work,  any  of  that 
'  headlong  self-asserting  capriciousness,  which,  if  not  discernible 
'  in  the  plan  of  Teufelsdrb'ckh's  Memoirs,  is  yet  plainly  to  be 
'  seen  in  the  structure  of  the  sentences,  the  lawless  oddity,  and 
'  strange  heterogeneous  combination  and  allusion.  The  prin- 
'  ciple  of  this  difference,  observable  often  elsewhere  in  modern 
'  literature  (for  the  same  thing  is  to  be  found,  more  or  less,  in 
'  many  of  our  most  genial  works  of  imagination, — Don  Quixote, 
'  for  instance,  and  the  writings  of  Jeremy  Taylor),  seems  to  be 
'  that  well-known  one  of  the  predominant  objectivity  of  the 
'  Pagan  mind  ;  while  among  us  the  subjective  has  risen  into 
'  superiority,  and  brought  with  it  in  each  individual  a  multitude 
1  of  peculiar  associations  and  relations.  These,  as  not  explicable 
1  from  any  one  external  principle  assumed  as  a  premiss  by  the 
'  ancient  philosopher,  were  rejected  from  the  sphere  of  his 
'  aesthetic  creation  :  but  to  us  they  all  have  a  value  and  mean- 
'  ing  ;  being  connected  by  the  bond  of  our  own  personality,  and 
'  all  alike  existing  in  that  infinity  which  is  its  arena. 

'  But  however  this  may  be,  and  comparing  the  Teufels- 
'  drockhean  Epopee  only  with  those  other  modern  works, — it  is 
'  noticeable  that  Rabelais,  Montaigne  and  Sterne  have  trusted 


NOT  CURATE.  97 

'  for  the  currency  of  their  writings,  in  a  great  decree,  to  the  use 
'  of  obscene  and  sensual  stimulants.  Rabelais,  besides,  was  full 
1  of  contemporary  and  personal  satire  ;  and  seems  to  have  been 
'  a  champion  in  the  great  cause  of  his  time, — as  was  Montaigne 
'  also, — that  of  the  right  of  thought  in  all  competent  minds,  un- 
'  restrained  by  any  outward  authority.  Montaigne,  moreover, 
'  contains  more  pleasant  and  lively  gossip,  and  more  distinct 
'  good-humoured  painting  of  his  own  character  and  daily  habits, 
'  than  any  other  writer  I  know.  Sterne  is  never  obscure,  and 
'  never  moral ;  and  the  costume  of  his  subjects  is  drawn  from 
'  the  familiar  experience  of  his  own  time  and  country  :  and 
'  Swift,  again,  has  the  same  merit  of  the  clearest  perspicuity, 
'  joined  to  that  of  the  most  homely,  unaffected,  forcible  English. 
'  These  points  of  difference  seem  to  me  the  chief  ones  which 
'  bear  against  the  success  of  the  Sartor.  On  the  other  hand, 
'  there  is  in  Teufelsdrockh  a  depth  and  fervour  of  feeling,  and 
'  a  power  of  serious  eloquence,  far  beyond  that  of  any  of  these 
'  four  writers  ;  and  to  which  indeed  there  is  nothing  at  all  com- 
'  parable  in  any  of  them,  except  perhaps  now  and  then,  and 
'  very  imperfectly,  in  Montaigne. 

'  Of  the  other  points  of  comparison  there  are  two  which  I 
'  would  chiefly  dwell  on  :  and  first  as  to  the  language.  A  good 
'  deal  of  this  is  positively  barbarous.  "  Environment,"  "  ves- 
'  tural,"  "stertorous,"  "visualised,"  "complected,"  and  others 
'  to  be  found  I  think  in  the  first  twenty  pages, — are  words,  so 
'  far  as  I  know,  without  any  authority  ;  some  of  them  contrary 
'  to  analogy  ;  and  none  repaying  by  their  value  the  disadvant- 
'  age  of  novelty.  To  these  must  be  added  new  and  erroneous 
'  locutions  ;  "whole  other  tissues"  for  all  the  other,  and  similar 
'  uses  of  the  word  whole  j  "orients"  for  pearls;  "lucid"  and 
'  "lucent"  employed  as  if  they  were  different  in  meaning; 
'  "  hulls"  perpetually  for  coverings,  it  being  a  word  hardly 
'  used,  and  then  only  for  the  husk  of  a  nut  ;  "  to  insure  a  man 
'  of  misapprehension ;"  "talented,"  a  mere  newspaper  and  hus- 
'  tings  word,  invented,  I  believe,  by  O'Connell. 

'  I  must  also  mention  the  constant  recurrence  of  some 
'  words  in  a  quaint  and  queer  connection,  which  gives  a  gro- 
'  tesque  and  somewhat  repulsive  mannerism  to  many  sentences. 
'  Oi  these  the  commonest  offender  is  "  quite  ;"  which  appears 
'  in  almost  every  page,  and  gives  at  first  a  droll  kind  of  em- 

H 


98  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  phasis  ;  but  soon  becomes  wearisome.  "  Nay,"  "  manifold," 
'  "cunning  enough  significance,"  "faculty"  (meaning  a  man's 
1  rational  or  moral  power],  "  special,"  "  not  without,"  haunt 
'  the  reader  as  if  in  some  uneasy  dream  which  does  not  rise 
'  to  the  dignity  of  nightmare.  Some  of  these  strange  manner- 
'  isms  fall  under  the  general  head  of  a  singularity  peculiar,  so 
'  far  as  I  know,  to  Teufelsdrockh.  For  instance,  that  of  the 
'  incessant  use  of  a  sort  of  odd  superfluous  qualification  of  his 
'  assertions  ;  which  seems  to  give  the  character  of  deliberate- 
'  ness  and  caution  to  the  style,  but  in  time  sounds  like  mere 
'  trick  or  involuntary  habit.  "Almost"  does  more  than  yeo- 
1  man's,  almost  slave's  service  in  this  way.  Something  similar 
'  may  be  remarked  of  the  use  of  the  double  negative  by  way 
'  of  affirmation.  . 

'  Under  this  head,  of  language,  may  be  mentioned,  though 
'  not  with  strict  grammatical  accuracy,  two  standing  charac- 
'  teristics  of  the  Professor's  style, — at  least  as  rendered  into 
'  English  :  First,  the  composition  of  words,  such  as  "  snow- 
'  and-rosebloom  maiden  :"  an  attractive  damsel  doubtless  in 
'  Germany,  but,  with  all  her  charms,  somewhat  uncouth  here. 
'  "  Life-vision"  is  another  example  ;  and  many  more  might  be 
'  found.  To  say  nothing  of  the  innumerable  cases  in  which 
'  the  words  are  only  intelligible  as  a  compound  term,  though 
'  not  distinguished  by  hyphens.  Of  course  the  composition  of 
'  words  is  sometimes  allowable  even  in  English  :  but  the  habit 
'  of  dealing  with  German  seems  to  have  produced,  in  the  pages 
'  before  us,  a  prodigious  superabundance  of  this  form  of  ex- 
'  pression  ;  which  gives  harshness  and  strangeness,  where  the 
'  matter  would  at  all  events  have  been  surprising  enough. 
'  Secondly,  I  object,  with  the  same  qualification,  to  the  frequent 
'  use  of  inversion  j  which  generally  appears  as  a  transposition 
'  of  the  two  members  of  a  clause,  in  a  way  which  would 
'  not  have  been  practised  in  conversation.  It  certainly  gives 
1  emphasis  and  force,  and  often  serves  to  point  the  meaning. 
'  But  a  style  may  be  fatiguing  and  faulty  precisely  by  being 
'  too  emphatic,  forcible  and  pointed  ;  and  so  straining  the 
'  attention  to  find  its  meaning,  or  the  admiration  to  appreciate 
'  its  beauty. 

'  Another  class  of  considerations  connects  itself  with  the 
'heightened  and  plethoric  fulness -of  the  style:  its  accumu- 


NOT  CURATE.  99 

'  lation  and  contrast  of  imagery  ;  its  occasional  jerking  and 
'  almost  spasmodic  violence  ; — and  above  all,  the  painful  sub- 
'  jective  excitement,  which  seems  the  element  and  ground- 
'  work  even  of  every  description  of  Nature  ;  often  taking  the 
'  shape  of  sarcasm  or  broad  jest,  but  never  subsiding  into 
'  calm.  There  is  also  a  point  which  I  should  think  worth 
'  attending  to,  were  I  planning  any  similar  book  :  I  mean  the 
'  importance,  in  a  work  of  imagination,  of  not  too  much  dis- 
'  turbing  in  the  reader's  mind  the  balance  of  the  New  and  Old. 
'  The  former  addresses  itself  to  his  active,  the  latter  to  his 
'  passive  faculty  ;  and  these  are  mutually  dependent,  and  must 
'  co-exist  in  certain  proportion,  if  you  wish  to  combine  his 
'  sympathy  and  progressive  exertion  with  willingness  and  ease 
'  of  attention.  This  should  be  taken  into  account  in  forming 
'  a  style  ;  for  of  course  it  cannot  be  consciously  thought  of  in 
'  composing  each  sentence. 

'  But  chiefly  it  seems  important  in  determining  the  plan  of 
'  a  work.  If  the  tone  of  feeling,  the  line  of  speculation  are 
'  out  of  the  common  way,  and  sure  to  present  some  difficulty 
'  to  the  average  reader,  then  it  would  probably  be  desirable 
'  to  select,  for  the  circumstances,  drapery  and  accessories  of 
'  all  kinds,  those  most  familiar,  or  at  least  most  attractive. 
'  A  fable  of  the  homeliest  purport,  and  commonest  every-day 
'  application,  derives  an  interest  and  charm  from  its  turning 
'  on  the  characters  and  acts  of  gods  and  genii,  lions  and  foxes, 
'  Arabs  and  Affghauns.  On  the  contrary,  for  philosophic  in- 
'  quiry  and  truths  of  awful  preciousness,  I  would  select  as  my 
'  personages  and  interlocutors  beings  with  whose  language 
'  and  "  whereabouts"  my  readers  would  be  familiar.  Thus 
'  did  Plato  in  his  Dialogues,  Christ  in  his  Parables.  There- 
'  fore  it  seems  doubtful  whether  it  was  judicious  to  make  a 
'  German  Professor  the  hero  of  Sartor.  Berkeley  began  his 
'  Sin's  with  tar-water  ;  but  what  can  English  readers  be  ex- 
'  pected  to  make  of  Gukgnk  by  way  of  prelibation  to  your 
'  nectar  and  tokay  ?  The  circumstances  and  details  do  not 
'  flash  with  living  reality  on  the  minds  of  your  readers,  but, 
'  on  the  contrary,  themselves  require  some  of  that  attention 
'  and  minute  speculation,  the  whole  original  stock  of  which,  in 
'  the  minds  of  most  of  them,  would  not  be  too  much  to  enable 
'  them  to  follow  your  views  oi  Man  and  Nature.  In  short, 


loo  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  there  is  not  a  sufficient  basis  of  the  common  to  justify  the 
'  amount  of  peculiarity  in  the  work.  In  a  book  of  science, 
'  these  considerations  would  of  course  be  inapplicable  ;  but 
'  then  the  whole  shape  and  colouring  of  the  book  must  be 
'  altered  to  make  it  such  ;  and  a  man  who  wishes  merely  to 
'  get  at  the  philosophical  result,  or  summary  of  the  whole,  will 
'  regard  the  details  and  illustrations  as  so  much  unprofitable 
'  surplusage. 

1  The  sense  of  strangeness  is  also  awakened  by  the  marvel- 
'  lous  combinations,  in  which  the  work  abounds  to  a  degree 
1  that  the  common  reader  must  find  perfectly  bewildering.  This 
'  can  hardly,  however,  be  treated  as  a  consequence  of  the 
'  style  j  for  the  style  in  this  respect  coheres  with,  and  springs 
'  from,  the  whole  turn  and  tendency  of  thought.  The  noblest 
1  images  are  objects  of  a  humorous  smile,  in  a  mind  which 
'  sees  itself  above  all  Nature  and  throned  in  the  arms  of  an 
'  Almighty  Necessity  ;  while  the  meanest  have  a  dignity,  inas- 
'  much  as  they  are  trivial  symbols  of  the  same  one  life  to  which 
'  the  great  whole  belongs.  And  hence,  as  I  divine,  the  start- 
'  ling  whirl  of  incongruous  juxtaposition,  which  of  a  truth  must 
1  to  many  readers  seem  as  amazing  as  if  the  Pythia  on  the 
'  tripod  should  have  struck-up  a  drinking-song,  or  Thersites 
'  had  caught  the  prophetic  strain  of  Cassandra. 

'  All  this,  of  course,  appears  to  me  true  and  relevant ;  but 
'  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  it  is,  after  all,  but  a  poor  piece  of 
'  quackery  to  comment  on  a  multitude  of  phenomena  without 
'  adverting  to  the  principle  which  lies  at  the  root,  and  gives 
1  the  true  meaning  to  them  all.  Now  this  principle  I  seem 
'  to  myself  to  find  in  the  state  of  mind  which  is  attributed  to 
'  Teufelsdrockh  ;  in  his  state  of  mind,  I  say,  not  in  his  opin- 
'  ions,  though  these  are,  in  him  as  in  all  men,  most  important, 
'  — being  one  of  the  best  indices  to  his  state  of  mind.  Now 
'  what  distinguishes  him,  not  merely  from  the  greatest  and  best 
'  men  who  have'  been  on  earth  for  eighteen  hundred  years,  but 
'  from  the  whole  body  of  those  who  have  been  working  forwards 
'  towards  the  good,  and  have  been  the  salt  and  light  of  the 
'  world,  is  this  :  That  he  does  not  believe  in  a  God.  Do 
'  not  be  indignant,  I  am  blaming  no  one ; — but  if  I  write  my 
'  thoughts,  I  must  write  them  honestly. 


NOT  CURATE.  101 

'  Tcufelsdrockh  does  not  belong  to  the  herd  of  sensual  and 
'  thoughtless  men  ;  because  he  does  perceive  in  all  Existence  a 
'  unity  of  power ;  because  he  does  believe  that  this  is  a  real 
1  power  external  to  him  and  dominant  to  a  certain  extent  over 
'  him,  and  does  not  think  that  he  is  himself  a  shadow  in  a  world 
'  of  shadows.  He  has  a  deep  feeling  of  the  beautiful,  the  good 
'  and  the  true  ;  and  a  faith  in  their  final  victory. 

'  At  the  same  time,  how  evident  is  the  strong  inward  unrest, 
'  the  Titanic  heaving  of  mountain  on  mountain  ;  the  storm-like 
'  rushing  over  land  and  sea  in  search  of  peace.  He  writhes 
'  and  roars  under  his  consciousness  of  the  difference  in  himself 
'  between  the  possible  and  the  actual,  the  hoped-for  and  the  ex- 
'  istent.  He  feels  that  duty  is  the  highest  law  of  his  own  being; 
'  and  knowing  how  it  bids  the  waves  be  stilled  into  an  icy  fixed- 
'  ness  and  grandeur,  he  trusts  (but  with  a  boundless  inward 
'  misgiving)  that  there  is  a  principle  of  order  which  will  reduce 
'  all  confusion  to  shape  and  clearness.  But  wanting  peace  him- 
'  self,  his  fierce  dissatisfaction  fixes  on  all  that  is  weak,  corrupt 
'  and  imperfect  around  him ;  and  instead  of  a  calm  and  steady 
'  cooperation  with  all  those  who  are  endeavouring  to  apply  the 
'  highest  ideas  as  remedies  for  the  worst  evils,  he  holds  himself 
'  aloof  in  savage  isolation  ;  and  cherishes  (though  he  dare  not 
'  own)  a  stern  joy  at  the  prospect  of  that  Catastrophe  which  is 
'  to  turn  loose  again  the  elements  of  man's  social  life,  and  give 
'  for  a  time  the  victory  to  evil ; — in  hopes  that  each  new  con- 
'  vulsion  of  the  world  must  bring  us  nearer  to  the  ultimate  re- 
'  storation  of  all  things  ;  fancying  that  each  may  be  the  last. 
'  Wanting  the  calm  and  cheerful  reliance,  which  would  be  the 
'  spring  of  active  exertion,  he  flatters  his  own  distemper  by  per- 
'  suading  himself  that  his  own  age  and  generation  are  peculiarly 
'  feeble  and  decayed ;  and  would  even  perhaps  be  willing  to 
'  exchange  the  restless  immaturity  of  our  self-consciousness,  and 
'  the  promise  of  its  long  throe-pangs,  for  the  unawakened  un- 
'  doubting  simplicity  of  the  world's  childhood  ;  of  the  times  in 
'  which  there  was  all  the  evil  and  horror  of  our  day,  only  with 
'  the  difference  that  conscience  had  not  arisen  to  try  and  con- 
'  demn  it.  In  these  longings,  it  they  are  Teufelsdrockh's,  he 
'  seems  to  forget  that,  could  we  go  back  five  thousand  years, 
'  we  should  only  have  the  prospect  of  travelling  them  again,  and 
'  arriving  at  last  at  the  same  point  at  which  we  stand  now. 


102  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  Something  of  this  state  of  mind  I  may  say  that  I  under- 
'  stand  ;  for  I  have  myself  experienced  it.  And  the  root  of  the 
'  matter  appears  to  me  :  A  want  of  sympathy  with  the  great 
'  body  of  those  who  are  now  endeavouring  to.  guide  and  help 
'  onward  their  fellow-men.  And  in  what  is  this  alienation 
4  grounded  ?  It  is,  as  I  believe,  simply  in  the  difference  on 
'  that  point :  viz.  the  clear,  deep,  habitual  recognition  of  a  one 
'  Living  Personal  God,  essentially  good,  wise,  true  and  holy,  the 
'  Author  of  all  that  exists ;  and  a  reunion  with  whom  is  the  only 
'  end  of  all  rational  beings.  This  belief*  *  *  [There  follow 
now  several  pages  on  '  Personal  Cod,'  and  other  abstruse  or  in- 
deed properly  unspeakable  matters  j  these,  and  a  general  Post- 
script of  qualifying  purport,  I  will  suppress ;  extracting  only 
the  following  fractions,  as  luminous  or  slightly  significant  to  us:~\ 

'  Now  see  the  difference  of  Teufelsdrockh's  feelings.  At  the 
'  end  of  book  iii.  chap.  8,  I  find  these  words:  "  But  whence?  O 
'  Heaven,  whither?  Sense  knows  not;  Faith  knows  not;  only 
'  that  it  is  through  mystery  to  mystery,  from  God  to  God. 

'  We  are  such  stuff 

'  As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  life 
'  Is  rounded  with  a  sleep." 

'  And  this  tallies  with  the  whole  strain  of  his  character.  What 
'  we  find  everywhere,  with  an  abundant  use  of  the  name  of  God, 
'  is  the  conception  of  a  formless  Infinite  whether  in  time  or 
'  space  ;  of  a  high  inscrutable  Necessity,  which  it  is  the  chief 
'  wisdom  and  virtue  to  submit  to,  which  is  the  mysterious  im- 
'  personal  base  of  all  Existence, — shows  itself  in  the  laws  of 
'  every  separate  being's  nature  ;  and  for  man  in  the  shape  of 
'  duty.  On  the  other  hand,  I  affirm,  we  do  know  whence  we 
'  come  and  whither  we  go  !'— 

*  •'•'  *   '  And  in  this  state  of  mind,  as  there  is  no  true  sym- 
'  pathy  with  others,  just  as  little  is  there  any  true  peace  for  our- 
'  selves.    There  is  indeed  possible  the  unsympathising  factitious 
'  calm  of  Art,  which  we  find  in  Goethe.    But  at  what  expense  is 
'  it  bought?    Simply,  by  abandoning  altogether  the  idea  of  duty, 
'  which  is  the  great  witness  of  our  personality.    And  he  attains 
'  his  inhuman  ghastly  calmness  by  reducing  the  Universe  to  a 
'  heap  of  material  for  the  idea  of  beauty  to  work  on.'— 

*  *  x   «  The  sum  of  au  j  have  been  writing  as  to  the  con- 


NOT  CURATE.  103 

'  nection  of  our  faith  in  God  with  our  feeling  towards  men  and 
'  our  mode  of  action,  may  of  course  be  quite  erroneous  :  but 
'  granting  its  truth,  it  would  supply  the  one  principle  which  I 
'  have  been  seeking  for,  in  order  to  explain  the  peculiarities  of 
'  style  in  your  account  of  Teufelsdrockh  and  his  writings.'  :'%"  *  * 
'  The  life  and  works  of  Luther  are  the  best  comment  I  know  of 
'  on  this  doctrine  of  mine. 

'  Reading  over  what  I  have  written,  I  find  I  have  not  nearly 
'  done  justice  to  my  own  sense  of  the  genius  and  moral  energy 
'  of  the  book  ;  but  this  is  what  you  will  best  excuse. — Believe 
'  me  most  sincerely  and  faithfully  yours,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

Here  are  sufficient  points  of  '  discrepancy  with  agreement,' 
here  is  material  for  talk  and  argument  enough ;  and  an  expanse 
of  free  discussion  open,  which  requires  rather  to  be  speedily 
restricted  for  convenience'  sake,  than  allowed  to  widen  itself 
into  the  boundless,  as  it  tends  to  do  ! — 

In  all  Sterling's  Letters  to  myself  and  others,  a  large  col- 
lection of  which  now  lies  before  me,  duly  copied  and  indexed, 
there  is,  to  one  that  knew  his  speech  as  well,  a  perhaps  unusual 
likeness  between  the  speech  and  the  Letters ;  and  yet,  for  most 
part,  with  a  great  inferiority  on  the  part  of  these.  These,  thrown 
off,  one  and  all  of  them,  without  premeditation,  and  with  most 
rapid-flowing  pen,  are  naturally  as  like  his  speech  as  writing 
can  well  be  ;  this  is  their  grand  merit  to  us :  but  on  the  other 
hand,  the  want  of  the  living  tones,  swift  looks  and  motions,  and 
manifold  dramatic  accompaniments,  tells  heavily,  more  heavily 
than  common.  What  can  be  done  with  champagne  itself,  much 
more  with  soda-water,  when  the  gaseous  spirit  is  fled  !  The 
reader,  in  any  specimens  he  may  see,  must  bear  this  in  mind. 

Meanwhile  these  Letters  do  excel  in  honesty,  in  candour  and 
transparency ;  their  very  carelessness  secures  their  excellence  in 
this  respect.  And  in  another  much  deeper  and  more  essential 
respect  I  must  likewise  call  them  excellent, — in  their  childlike 
goodness,  in  the  purity  of  heart,  the  noble  affection  and  fidelity 
they  everywhere  manifest  in  the  writer.  This  often  touchingly 
strikes  a  familiar  friend  in  reading  them  ;  and  will  awaken 
reminiscences  (when  you  have  the  commentary  in  your  own 
memory)  which  are  sad  and  beautiful,  and  not  without  reproach 
to  you  on  occasion.  To  all  friends,  and  all  good  causes,  this 


104  JOHN  STERLING. 

man  is  true ;  behind  their  back  as  before  their  face,  the  same 
man! — Such  traits  of  the  autobiographic  sort,  from  these  Letters, 
as  can  serve  to  paint  him  or  his  life,  and  promise  not  to  weary 
the  reader,  I  must  endeavour  to  select,  in  the  sequel. 


CHAPTER  III. 

BAYSWATER. 

STERLING  continued  to  reside  at  Herstmonceux  through  the 
spring  and  summer ;  holding  by  the  peaceable  retired  house  he 
still  had  there,  till  the  vague  future  might  more  definitely  shape 
itself,  and  better  point-out  what  place  of  abode  would  suit  him 
in  his  new  circumstances.  He  made  frequent  brief  visits  to 
London  ;  in  which  I,  among  other  friends,  frequently  saw  him, 
our  acquaintance  at  each  visit  improving  in  all  ways.  Like  a 
swift  dashing  meteor  he  came  into  our  circle ;  coruscated  among 
us,  for  a  day  or  two,  with  sudden  pleasant  illumination  ;  then 
again  suddenly  withdrew, — we  hoped,  not  for  long. 

I  suppose,  he  was  full  of  uncertainties ;  but  undoubtedly 
was  gravitating  towards  London.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  on  the  sur- 
face of  him,  you  saw  no  uncertainties ;  far  from  that :  it  seemed 
always  rather  with  peremptory  resolutions,  and  swift  express 
businesses,  that  he  was  charged.  Sickly  in  body,  the  testimony 
said :  but  here  always  was  a  mind  that  gave  you  the  impression 
of  peremptory  alertness,  cheery  swift  decision, — of  a  health 
which  you  might  have  called  exuberant.  I  remember  dialogues 
with  him,  of  that  year ;  one  pleasant  dialogue  under  the  trees 
of  the  Park  (where  now,  in  1851,  is  the  thing  called  'Crystal 
Palace'),  with  the  June  sunset  flinging  long  shadows  for  us; 
the  last  of  the  Quality  just  vanishing  for  dinner,  and  the  great 
night  beginning  to  prophesy  of  itself.  Our  talk  (like  that  of  the 
foregoing  Letter)  was  of  the  faults  of  my  style,  of  my  way  of 
thinking,  of  my  £c.  &c.  ;  all  which  admonitions  and  remon- 
strances, so  friendly  and  innocent,  from  this  young  junior-senior, 
I  was  willing  to  listen  to,  though  unable,  as  usual,  to  get  almost 
any  practical  hold  of  them.  As  usual,  the  garments  do  not  fit 
you,  you  are  lost  in  the  garments,  or  you  cannot  get  into  them 
at  all ;  this  is  not  your  suit  of  clothes,  it  must  be  another's : — 


BAYSWATER.  105 

alas,  these  are  not  your  dimensions,  these  are  only  the  optical 
angles  you  subtend ;  on  the  whole,  you  will  never  get  measured 
in  that  way! — 

Another  time,  of  date  probably  very  contiguous,  I  remember 
hearing  Sterling  preach.  It  was  in  some  new  College-chapel 
in  Somerset-house  (I  suppose,  what  is  now  called  King's  Col- 
lege) ;  a  very  quiet  small  place,  the  audience  student-looking 
youths,  with  a  few  elder  people,  perhaps  mostly  friends  of  the 
preacher's.  The  discourse,  delivered  with  a  grave  sonorous 
composure,  and  far  surpassing  in  talent  the  usual  run  of  ser- 
mons, had  withal  an  air  of  human  veracity  as  I  still  recollect, 
and  bespoke  dignity  and  piety  of  mind  :  but  gave  me  the 
impression  rather  of  artistic  excellence  than  of  unction  or  in- 
spiration in  that  kind.  Sterling  returned  with  us  to  Chelsea 
that  day  ; — and  in  the  afternoon  we  went  on  the  Thames  Put- 
ney-ward together,  we  two  with  my  Wife  ;  under  the  sunny 
skies,  on  the  quiet  water,  and  with  copious  cheery  talk,  the  re- 
membrance of  which  is  still  present  enough  to  me. 

This  was  properly  my  only  specimen  of  Sterling's  preach- 
ing. Another  time,  late  in  the  same  autumn,  I  did  indeed 
attend  him  one  evening  to  some  Church  in  the  City, — a  big 
Church  behind  Cheapside,  "built  by  Wren"  as  he  carefully  in- 
formed me  ; — but  there,  in  my  wearied  mood,  the  chief  subject 
of  reflection  was  the  almost  total  vacancy  of  the  place,  and 
how  an  eloquent  soul  was  preaching  to  mere  lamps  and  prayer- 
books  ;  and  of  the  sermon  I  retain  no  image.  It  came  up  in 
the  way  of  banter,  if  he  ever  urged  the  duty  of  '  Church  exten- 
sion,' which  already  he  very  seldom  did  and  at  length  never, 
what  a  specimen  we  once  had  of  bright  lamps,  gilt  prayer-books, 
baize-lined  pews,  Wren-built  architecture  ;  and  how,  in  almost 
all  directions,  you  might  have  fired  a  musket  through  the 
church,  and  hit  no  Christian  life.  A  terrible  outlook  indeed  for 
the  Apostolic  labourer  in  the  brick-and-mortar  line  ! — 

In  the  Autumn  of  this  same  1835,  he  removed  permanently 
to  London,  whither  all  summer  he  had  been  evidently  tending; 
took  a  house  in  Bayswater,  an  airy  suburb,  half  town,  half 
country,  near  his  Father's,  and  within  fair  distance  of  his  other 
friends  and  objects ;  and  decided  to  await  there  what  the  ultimate 
developments  of  his  course  might  be.  His  house  was  in  Orme 


106  JOHN  STERLING. 

Square,  close  by  the  corner  of  that  little  place  (which  has  only 
three  sides  of  houses) ;  its  windows  looking  to  the  east  :  the 
Number  was,  and  I  believe  still  is,  No.  5.  A  sufficiently  com- 
modious, by  no  means  sumptuous,  small  mansion  ;  where,  with 
the  means  sure  to  him,  he  could  calculate  on  finding  adequate 
shelter  for  his  family,  his  books  and  himself,  and  live  in  a 
decent  manner,  in  no  terror  of  debt,  for  one  thing.  His  income, 
I  suppose,  was  not  large  ;  but  he  lived  generally  a  safe  distance 
within  it ;  and  showed  himself  always  as  a  man  bountiful  in 
money  matters,  and  taking  no  thought  that  way. 

His  study-room  in  this  house  was  perhaps  mainly  the  draw- 
ing-room ;  looking  out  safe,  over  the  little  dingy  grass-plot  in 
front,  and  the  quiet  little  row  of  houses  opposite,  with  the  huge 
dust-whirl  of  Oxford  Street  and  London  far  enough  ahead  of  you 
as  back-ground, — as  back-curtain,  blotting-out  only  half  your 
blue  hemisphere  with  dust  and  smoke.  On  the  right,  you  had 
the  continuous  growl  of  the  Uxbriclge  Road  and  its  wheels, 
coming  as  lullaby  not  interruption.  Leftward  and  rearward, 
after  some  thin  belt  of  houses,  lay  mere  country  ;  bright  sweep- 
ing green  expanses,  crowned  by  pleasant  Hampstead,  pleasant 
Harrow,  with  their  rustic  steeples  rising  against  the  sky.  Here 
on  winter  evenings,  the  bustle  of  removal  being  all  well  ended, 
and  family  and  books  got  planted  in  their  new  places,  friends 
could  find  Sterling,  as  they  often  did,  who  was  delighted  to  be 
found  by  them,  and  would  give  and  take,  vividly  as  few  others, 
an  hour's  good  talk  at  any  time. 

His  outlooks,  it  must  be  admitted,  were  sufficiently  vague 
and  overshadowed  ;  neither  the  past  nor  the  future  of  a  too 
joyful  kind.  Public  life,  in  any  professional  form,  is  quite  for- 
bidden ;  to  work  with  his  fellows  anywhere  appears  to  be  for- 
bidden :  nor  can  the  humblest  solitary  endeavour  to  work 
worthily  as  yet  find  an  arena.  How  unfold  one's  little  bit  of 
talent ;  and  live,  and  not  lie  sleeping,  while  it  is  called  Today? 
As  Radical,  as  Reforming  Politician  in  any  public  or  private 
form, — not  only  has  this,  in  Sterling's  case,  received  tragical 
sentence  and  execution  ;  but  the  opposite  extreme,  the  Church 
whither  he  had  fled,  likewise  proves  abortive  :  the  Church  also 
is  not  the  haven  for  him  at  all.  What  is  to  be  done  ?  Some- 
thing must  be  done,  and  soon, — under  penalties.  Whoever  has 
received,  on  him  there  is  an  inexorable  behest  to  give.  "Fats 


BAYSWATER.  107 

ton  fait,  Do  thy  little  stroke  of  work:"  this  is  Nature's  voice, 
and  the  sum  of  all  the  commandments,  to  each  man  ! 

A  shepherd  of  the  people,  some  small  Agamemnon  after  his 
sort,  doing  what  little  sovereignty  and  guidance  he  can  in  his 
day  and  generation  :  such  every  gifted  soul  longs,  and  should 
long,  to  be.  But  how,  in  any  measure,  is  the  small  kingdom 
necessary  for  Sterling  to  be  attained?  Not  through  newspapers 
and  parliaments,  not  by  rubrics  and  reading-desks  :  none  of 
the  sceptres  offered  in  the  world's  marketplace,  nor  none  of  the 
crosiers  there,  it  seems,  can  be  the  shepherd's-crook  for  this 
man.  A  most  cheerful,  hoping  man  ;  and  full  of  swift  faculty, 
though  much  lamed, — considerably  bewildered  too ;  and  tending 
rather  towards  the  wastes  and  solitary  places  for  a  home  ;  the 
paved  world  not  being  friendly  to  him  hitherto  !  The  paved 
world,  in  fact,  both  on  its  practical  and  spiritual  side,  slams-to 
its  doors  against  him  ;  indicates  that  he  cannot  enter,  and  even 
must  not, — that  it  will  prove  a  choke-vault,  deadly  to  soul  and 
to  body,  if  he  enter.  Sceptre,  crosier,  sheepcrook  is  none  there 
for  him. 

There  remains  one  other  implement,  the  resource*  of  all 
Adam's  posterity  that  are  otherwise  foiled, — the  Pen.  It  was 
evident  from  this  point  that  Sterling,  however  otherwise  beaten 
about,  and  set  fluctuating,  would  gravitate  steadily  with  all  his 
real  weight  towards  Literature.  That  he  would  gradually  try 
with  consciousness  to  get  into  Literature  ;•  and,  on  the  whole, 
never  quit  Literature,  which  was  now  all  the  world  for  him. 
Such  is  accordingly  the  sum  of  his  history  henceforth  :  such 
small  sum,  so  terribly  obstructed  and  diminished  by  circum- 
stances, is  all  we  have  realised  from  him. 

Sterling  had  by  no  means  as  yet  consciously  quitted  the 
clerical  profession,  far  less  the  Church  as  a  creed.  We  have 
seen,  he  occasionally  officiated  still  in  these  months,  when  a 
friend  requested  or  an  opportunity  invited.  Nay  it  turned  out 
afterwards,  he  had,  unknown  even  to  his  own  family,  during  a 
good  many  weeks  in  the  coldest  period  of  next  spring,  when  it 
was  really  dangerous  for  his  health  and  did  prove  hurtful  to  it, 
— been  constantly  performing  the  morning  service  in  some 
Chapel  in  Bayswater  for  a  young  clerical  neighbour,  a  slight 
acquaintance  of  his,  who  was  sickly  at  the  time.  So  far  as  I 


lo8  JOHN  STERLING. 

know,  this  of  the  Bayswater  Chapel  in  the  spring  of  1836,  a 
feat  severely  rebuked  by  his  Doctor  withal,  was  his  last  actual 
service  as  a  churchman.  But  the  conscious  life  ecclesiastical 
still  hung  visibly  about  his  inner  unconscious  and  real  life,  for 
years  to  come ;  and  not  till  by  slow  degrees  he  had  unwinded 
from  him  the  wrappages  of  it,  could  he  become  clear  about  him- 
self, and  so  much  as  try  heartily  what  his  now  sole  course  was. 
Alas,  and  he  had  to  live  all  the  rest  of  his  days,  as  in  continual 
flight  for  his  very  existence;  'ducking  under  like  a  poor  un- 
'  fledged  partridge-bird,'  as  one  described  it,  'before  the  mower; 
'  darting  continually  from  nook  to  nook,  and  there  crouching,  to 
'  escape  the  scythe  of  Death.'  For  Literature  Proper  there  was 
but  little  left  in  such  a  life.  Only  the  smallest  broken  fractions 
of  his  last  and  heaviest-laden  years  can  poor  Sterling  be  said  to 
have  completely  lived.  His  purpose  had  risen  before  him 
slowly  in  noble  clearness  ;  clear  at  last, — and  even  then  the  in- 
evitable hour  was  at  hand. 

In  those  first  London  months,  as  always  afterwards  while  it 
remained  physically  possible,  I  saw  much  of  him  ;  loved  him, 
as  was  natural,  more  and  more  ;  found  in  him,  many  ways,  a 
beautiful  acquisition  to  my  existence  here.  He  was  full  of 
bright  speech  and  argument  ;  radiant  with  arrowy  vitalities,  vi- 
vacities and  ingenuities.  Less  than  any  man  he  gave  you  the 
idea  of  ill-health.  Hopeful,  sanguine  ;  nay  he  did  not  even 
seem  to  need  definite  hope,  or  much  to  form  any  ;  projecting 
himself  in  aerial  pulses  like  an  aurora  borealis,  like  a  summer 
dawn,  and  filling  all  the  world  with  present  brightness  for  him- 
self and  others.  Ill-health  ?  Nay  you  found  at  last,  it  was  the 
very  excess  of  life  in  him  that  brought  on  disease.  This  rest- 
less play  of  being,  fit  to  conquer  the  world,  could  it  have  been 
held  and  guided,  could  not  be  held.  It  had  worn  holes  in  the 
outer  case  of  it,  and  there  found  vent  for  itself, — there,  since 
not  otherwise.  - 

In  our  many  promenades  and  colloquies,  which  were  of  the 
freest,  most  copious  and  pleasant  nature,  religion  often  formed 
a  topic,  and  perhaps  towards  the  beginning  ot  our  intercourse 
was  the  prevailing  topic.  Sterling  seemed  much  engrossed  in 
matters  theological,  and  led  the  conversation  towards  such ; 
talked  often  about  Church,  Christianity  Anglican  and  other, 
how  essential  the  belief  in  it  to  man  ;  then,  on  the  other  side, 


BAYSWATER.  109 

about  Pantheism  and  suchlike ;  —  all  in  the  Coleridge  dialect, 
and  with  eloquence  and  volubility  to  all  lengths.  I  remember 
his  insisting  often  and  with  emphasis  on  what  he  called  a  "per- 
sonal God,"  and  other  high  topics,  of  which  it  was  not  always 
pleasant  to  give  account  in  the  argumentative  form,  in  a  loud 
hurried  voice,  walking  and  arguing  through  the  fields  or  streets. 
Though  of  warm  quick  feelings,  very  positive  in  his  opinions, 
and  vehemently  eager  to  convince  and  conquer  in  such  discus- 
sions, I  seldom  or  never  saw  the  least  anger  in  him  against  me 
or  any  friend.  When  the  blows  of  contradiction  came  too 
thick,  he  could  with  consummate  dexterity  whisk  aside  out  of 
their  way  ;  prick  into  his  adversary  on  some  new  quarter  ;  or 
gracefully  flourishing  his  weapon,  end  the  duel  in  some  hand- 
some manner.  One  angry  glance  I  remember  in  him,  and  it 
was  but  a  glance,  and  gone  in  a  moment.  "  Flat  Pantheism!" 
urged  he  once  (which  he  would  often  enough  do  about  this 
time),  as  if  triumphantly,  of  something  or  other,  in  the  fire  of  a 
debate,  in  my  hearing  :  "  It  is  mere  Pantheism,  that!" — "And 
suppose  it  were  Pot-theism  ?"  cried  the  other  :  "  If  the  thing  is 
true!" — Sterling  did  look  hurt  at  such  flippant  heterodoxy,  for 
a  moment.  The  soul  of  his  own  creed,  in  those  days,  was  far 
other  than  this  indifference  to  Pot  or  Pan  in  such  departments 
of  inquiry. 

To  me  his  sentiments  for  most  part  were  lovable  and  ad- 
mirable, though  in  the  logical  outcome  there  was  everywhere 
room  for  opposition.  I  admired  the  temper,  the  longing  to- 
wards antique  heroism,  in  this  young  man  of  the  nineteenth 
century  ;  but  saw  not  how,  except  in  some  German-English 
empire  of  the  air,  he  was  ever  to  realise  it  on  those  terms.  In 
fact,  it  became  clear  to  me  more  and  more  that  here  was  noble- 
ness of  heart  striving  towards  all  nobleness  ;  here  was  ardent 
recognition  of  the  worth  of  Christianity,  for  one  thing  ;  but  no 
belief  in  it  at  all,  in  my  sense  of  the  word  belief, — no  belief  but 
one  definable  as  mere  theoretic  moonshine,  which  would  never 
stand  the  wind  and  weather  of  fact.  Nay  it  struck  me  farther 
that  Sterling's  was  not  intrinsically,  nor  had  ever  been  in  the 
highest  or  chief  degree,  a  devotional  mind.  Of  course  all  ex- 
cellence in  man,  and  worship  as  the  supreme  excellence,  was 
part  of  the  inheritance  of  this  gifted  man  :  but  if  called  to  de- 
fine him,  I  should  say,  Artist  not  Saint  was  the  real  bent  of  his 


no  JOHN  STERLING. 

being.  He  had  endless  admiration,  but  intrinsically  rather  a 
deficiency  of  reverence  in  comparison.  Fear,  with  its  corol- 
laries, on  the  religious  side,  he  appeared  to  have  none,  nor  ever 
to  have  had  any. 

In  short,  it  was  a  strange  enough  symptom  to  me  of  the  be- 
wildered condition  of  the  world,  to  behold  a  man  of  this  tem- 
per, and  of  this  veracity  and  nobleness,  self-consecrated  here, 
by  free  volition  and  deliberate  selection,  to  be  a  Christian 
Priest ;  and  zealously  struggling  to  fancy  himself  such  in  very 
truth.  Undoubtedly  a  singular  present  fact ; — from  which,  as 
from  their  point  of  intersection,  great  perplexities  and  aberra- 
tions in  the  past,  and  considerable  confusions  in  the  future 
might  be  seen  ominously  radiating.  Happily  our  friend,  as  I 
said,  needed  little  hope.  Today  with  its  activities  was  always 
bright  and  rich  to  him.  His  unmanageable,  dislocated,  de- 
vastated world,  spiritual  or  economical,  lay  all  illuminated  in 
living  sunshine,  making  it  almost  beautiful  to  his  eyes,  and  gave 
him  no  hypochondria.  A  richer  soul,  in  the  way  of  natural 
outfit  for  felicity,  for  joyful  activity  in  this  world,  so  far  as  his 
strength  would  go,  was  nowhere  to  be  met  with. 

The  Letters  which  Mr.  Hare  has  printed,  Letters  addressed, 
I  imagine,  mostly  to  himself,  in  this  and  the  following  year  or 
two,  give  record  of  abundant  changeful  plannings  and  labour- 
ings,  on  the  part  of  Sterling  ;  still  chiefly  in  the  theological  de- 
partment. Translation  from  Tholuck,  from  Schleiermacher; 
treatise  on  this  thing,  then  on  that,  are  on  the  anvil :  it  is  a 
life  of  abstruse  vague  speculations,  singularly  cheerful  and  hope- 
ful withal,  about  Will,  Morals,  Jonathan  Edwards,  Jewhood, 
Manhood,  and  of  Books  to  be  written  on  these  topics.  Part 
of  which  adventurous  vague  plans,  as  the  Translation  from 
Tholuck,  he  actually  performed  ;  other  greater  part,  merging 
always  into  wider  undertakings,  remained  plan  merely.  I 
remember  he  talked  often  about  Tholuck,  Schleiermacher,  and 
others  of  that  stamp  ;  and  looked  disappointed,  though  full  of 
good  nature,  at  my  obstinate  indifference  to  them  and  their 
affairs. 

His  knowledge  of  German  Literature,  very  slight  at  this 
time,  limited  itself  altogether  to  writers  on  Church  matters, — 
Evidences,  Counter-Evidences,  Theologies  and  Rumours  of 


BAYSWATER.  1 1 1 

Theologies  ;  by  the  Tholucks,  Schleiermachers,  Neanders,  and 
I  know  not  whom.  Of  the  true  sovereign  souls  of  that  Litera- 
ture, the  Goethes,  Richters,  Schillers,  Lessings,  he  had  as  good 
as  no  knowledge  ;  and  of  Goethe  in  particular  an  obstinate 
misconception,  with  proper  abhorrence  appended,— which  did 
not  abate  for  several  years,  nor  quite  abolish  itself  till  a  very 
late  period.  Till,  in  a  word,  he  got  Goethe's  works  fairly  read 
and  studied  for  himself!  This  was  often  enough  the  course 
with  Sterling  in  such  cases.  He  had  a  most  swift  glance  of  re- 
cognition for  the  worthy  and  for  the  unworthy  ;  and  was  prone, 
in  his  ardent  decisive  way,  to  put  much  faith  in  it.  "Such  a 
one  is  a  worthless  idol ;  not  excellent,  only  sham-excellent  :" 
here,  on  this  negative  side  especially,  you  often  had  to  admire 
how  right  he  was  ; — often,  but  not  quite  always.  And  he  would 
maintain,  with  endless  ingenuity,  confidence  and  persistence, 
his  fallacious  spectrum  to  be  a  real  image.  However,  it  was 
sure  to  come  all  right  in  the  end.  Whatever  real  excellence  he 
might  misknow,  you  had  but  to  let  it  stand  before  him,  solicit- 
ing new  examination  from  him  :  none  surer  than  he  to  recog- 
nise it  at  last,  and  to  pay  it  all  his  dues,  with  the  arrears  and 
interest  on  them.  Goethe,  who  figures  as  some  absurd  high- 
stalking  hollow  playactor,  or  empty  ornamental  clockcase  of  an 
'  Artist'  so-called,  in  the  Tale  of  the  Onyx  Ring,  was  in  the 
throne  of  Sterling's  intellectual  world  before  all  was  done  ;  and 
the  theory  of '  Goethe's  want  of  feeling,'  want  of  &c.  &c.  ap- 
peared to  him  also  abundantly  contemptible  and  forgettable. 

Sterling's  days,  during  this  time  as  always,  were  full  of  oc- 
cupation, cheerfully  interesting  to  himself  and  others  ;  though, 
the  wrecks  of  theology  so  encumbering  him,  little  fruit  on  the 
positive  side  could  come  of  these  labours.  On  the  negative 
side  they  were  productive  ;  and  there  also,  so  much  of  encum- 
brance requiring  removal,  before  fruit  could  grow,  there  was 
plenty  of  labour  needed.  He  looked  happy  as  well  as  busy  ; 
roamed  extensively  among  his  friends,  and  loved  to  have  them 
about  him, — chiefly  old  Cambridge  comrades  now  settling  into 
occupations  in  the  world  ; — and  was  felt  by  all  friends,  by  my- 
self as  by  few,  to  be  a  welcome  illumination  in  the  dim  whirl 
of  things.  A  man  of  altogether  social  and  human  ways  ;  his 
address  everywhere  pleasant  and  enlivening.  A  certain  smile 
of  thin  but  genuine  laughter,  we  might  say,  hung  gracefully 


112  JOHN  STERLING. 

over  all  he  said  and  did  ; — expressing  gracefully,  according  to 
the  model  of  this  epoch,  the  stoical  pococurantism  which  is  re- 
quired of  the  cultivated  Englishman.  Such  laughter  in  him 
was  not  deep,  but  neither  was  it  false  (as  lamentably  happens 
often)  ;  and  the  cheerfulness  it  went  to  symbolise  was  hearty 
and  beautiful, — visible  in  the  silent  ««symbolised  state  in  a  still 
gracefuler  fashion. 

Of  wit,  so  far  as  rapid  lively  intellect  produces  wit,  he  had 
plenty,  and  did  not  abuse  his  endowment  that  way,  being  al- 
ways fundamentally  serious  in  the  purport  of  his  speech  :  of 
what  we  call  humour,  he  had  some,  though  little ;  nay  of  real 
sense  for  the  ludicrous,  in  any  form,  he  had  not  much  for  a  man 
of  his  vivacity  ;  and  you  remarked  that  his  laugh  was  limited 
in  compass,  and  of  a  clear  but  not  rich  quality.  To  the  like 
effect  shone  something,  a  kind  of  childlike  half- embarrassed 
shimmer  of  expression,  on  his  fine  vivid  countenance  ;  curiously 
mingling  with  its  ardours  and  audacities.  A  beautiful  childlike 
soul  !  He  was  naturally  a  favourite  in  conversation,  especially 
with  all  who  had  any  funds  for  conversing  :  frank  and  direct,  yet 
polite  and  delicate  withal, — though  at  times  too  he  could  crackle 
with  his  dexterous  petulances,  making  the  air  all  like  needles 
round  you  ;  and  there  was  no  end  to  his  logic  when  you  excited 
it ;  no  end,  unless  in  some  form  of  silence  on  your  part.  Elderly 
men  of  reputation  I  have  sometimes  known  offended  by  him  : 
for  he  took  a  frank  way  in  the  matter  of  talk  ;  spoke  freely  out 
of  him,  freely  listening  to  what  others  spoke,  with  a  kind  of 
"  hail  fellow  well  met"  feeling  ;  and  carelessly  measured  a  man 
much  less  by  his  reputed  account  in  the  bank  of  wit,  or  in  any 
other  bank,  than  by  what  the  man  had  to  show  for  himself  in 
the  shape  of  real  spiritual  cash  on  the  occasion.  But  withal 
there  was  ever  a  fine  element  of  natural  courtesy  in  Sterling  ; 
his  deliberate  demeanour  to  acknowledged  superiors  was  fine 
and  graceful ;  his  apologies  and  the  like,  when  in  a  fit  of  re- 
pentance he  felt  commanded  to  apologise,  were  full  oi  naivety, 
and  very  pretty  and  ingenuous. 

His  circle  of  friends  was  wide  enough  ;  chiefly  men  of  his 
own  standing,  old  College  triends  many  of  them  ;  some  of  whom 
have  now  become  universally  known.  Among  whom  the  most 
important  to  him  was  Frederic  Maurice,  who  had  not  long  be- 
fore removed  to  the  Chaplaincy  of  Guy's  Hospital  here,  and 


BAYSWATER.  1 1 3 

was  still,  as  he  had  long  been,  his  intimate  and  counsellor. 
Their  views  and  articulate  opinions,  I  suppose,  were  now  fast 
beginning  to  diverge  ;  and  these  went  on  diverging  far  enough  : 
but  in  their  kindly  union,  in  their  perfect  trustful  familiarity, 
precious  to  both  parties,  there  never  was  the  least  break,  but  a 
steady,  equable  and  duly  increasing  current  to  the  end.  One 
of  Sterling's  commonest  expeditions,  in  this  time,  was  a  sally 
to  the  other  side  of  London  Bridge  :  "  Going  to  Guy's  today." 
Maurice,  in  a  year  or  two,  became  Sterling's  brother-in-law ; 
wedded  Mrs.  Sterling's  younger  sister,  — a  gentle  excellent 
female  soul ;  by  whom  the  relation  was,  in  many  ways,  strength- 
ened and  beautified  for  Sterling  and  all  friends  of  the  par- 
ties. With  the  Literary  notabilities  I  think  he  had  no  acquaint- 
ance ;  his  thoughts  indeed  still  tended  rather  towards  a  certain 
class  of  the  Clerical  ;  but  neither  had  he  much  to  do  with  these ; 
for  he  was  at  no  time  the  least  of  a  tufthunter,  but  rather  had 
a  marked  natural  indifference  to  tufts. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Dunn,  a  venerable  and  amiable  Irish  gen- 
tleman, 'distinguished,'  we  were  told,  'by  having  refused  a 
bishopric  :'  and  who  was  now  living,  in  an  opulent  enough  re- 
tirement, amid  his  books  and  philosophies  and  friends,  in  Lon- 
don,— is  memorable  to  me  among  this  clerical  class:  one  of 
the  mildest,  beautifulest  old  men  I  have  ever  seen, — "like 
Fenelon,"  Sterling  said  :  his  very  face,  with  its  kind  true  smile, 
with  its  look  of  suffering  cheerfulness  and  pious  wisdom,  was  a 
sort  of  benediction.  It  is  of  him  that  Sterling  writes,  in  the 
Extract  which  Mr.  Hare,  modestly  reducing  the  name  to  an 
initial  '  Mr.  D.,'  has  given  us  :*  '  Mr.  Dunn,  for  instance  ;  the 
'  defect  of  whose  Theology,  compounded  as  it  is  of  the  doctrine 
'  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  of  the  Mystics  and  of  Ethical  Philo- 
'  sophers,  consists, — if  I  may  hint  a  fault  in  one  whose  holiness, 
'  meekness  and  fervour  would  have  made  him  the  beloved  dis- 
'  ciple  of  him  whom  Jesus  loved, — in  an  insufficient  apprehen- 
'  sion  of  the  reality  and  depth  of  Sin.'  A  characteristic  'de- 
fect' of  this  fine  gentle  soul.  On  Mr.  Dunn's  death,  which 
occurred  two  or  three  years  later,  Sterling  gave,  in  some  veiled 
yet  transparent  form,  in  Blackwood's  RIagazine,  an  affectionate 
and  eloquent  notice  of  him  ;  which,  stript  of  the  veil,  was  ex- 
cerpted into  the  Newspapers  also.2 

1  P.  Ixxviii.  2  Given  in  Hare  (ii.  188-193). 

I 


H4  JOHN  STERLING. 

Of  Coleridge  there  was  little  said.  Coleridge  was  now  dead, 
not  long  since  ;  nor  was  his  name  henceforth  much  heard  in 
Sterling's  circle  ;  though  on  occasion,  for  a  year  or  two  to  come, 
he  would  still  assert  his  transcendent  admiration,  especially  if 
Maurice  were  by  to  help.  But  he  was  getting  into  German, 
into  various  inquiries  and  sources  of  knowledge  new  to  him, 
and  his  admirations  and  notions  on  many  things  were  silently 
and  rapidly  modifying  themselves. 

So,  amid  interesting  human  realities,  and  wide  cloud-cano- 
pies of  uncertain  speculation,  which  also  had  their  interests  and 
their  rainbow-colours  to  him,  and  could  not  fail  in  his  life  just 
now,  did  Sterling  pass  his  year  and  half  at  Bayswater.  Such 
vaporous  speculations  were  inevitable  for  him  at  present ;  but 
it  was  to  be  hoped  they  would  subside  by  and  by,  and  leave  the 
sky  clear.  All  this  was  but  the  preliminary  to  whatever  work 
might  lie  in  him  : — and,  alas,  much  other  interruption  lay  be- 
tween him  and  that. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

TO  BORDEAUX. 

AMONG  the  quondam  Cambridge  acquaintances  I  have  seen 
with  Sterling  about  this  time,  one  struck  me,  less  from  his  quali- 
ties than  from  his  name  and  genealogy  :  Frank  Edgeworth, 
youngest  son  of  the  well-known  Lovell  Edgeworth,  youngest 
brother  of  the  celebrated  Maria  Edgeworth,  the  Irish  Novelist. 
Frank  was  a  short  neat  man  ;  of  sleek,  square,  colourless  face 
(resembling  the  Portraits  of  his  Father),  with  small  blue  eyes 
in  which  twinkled  curiously  a  joyless  smile  ;  his  voice  was  croaky 
and  shrill,  with  a  tone  of  shrewish  obstinacy  in  it,  and  perhaps 
of  sarcasm  withal.  A  composed,  dogmatic,  speculative,  exact, 
and  not  melodious  man.  He  was  learned  in  Plato  and  likewise 
in  Kant ;  well-read  in  philosophies  and  literatures  ;  entertained 
not  creeds,  but  the  Platonic  or  Kanteang/iosts  of  creeds  ;  coldly 
sneering  away  from  him,  in  the  joyless  twinkle  of  those  eyes, 
in  the  inexorable  jingle  of  that  shrill  voice,  all  manner  of  Tory- 
isms, superstitions  ;  for  the  rest,  a  man  of  perfect  veracity,  of 
great  diligence,  and  other  worth  ; — notable  to  see  alongside  of 
Sterling. 


TO  BORDEAUX.  115 

He  is  the  '  E.'  quoted  by  Mr.  Hare  from  one  of  Sterling's 
letters  ; — and  I  will  incidentally  confess  that  the  discreet  '  B.' 
of  the  next  leaf  in  that  Volume  must,  if  need  be,  convert  himself 
into  '  C.,'  my  recognisable  self  namely.  Sterling  has  written, 
there  :  '  I  find  in  all  my  conversations  with  Carlyle  that  his 
'  fundamental  position  is,  the  good  of  evil :  he  is  forever  quoting 
'  Goethe's  Epigram  about  the  idleness  of  wishing  to  jump  off 
'  one's  own  shadow.' — Even  so  : 

Was  lehr'  ich  dich  vor  alien  Dingen  ? — 
Konntest  micJi  lehren  von  meiner  Schatte  zu  springen  ! 

— indicating  conversations  on  the  Origin  of  Evil,  or  rather  re- 
solution on  my  part  to  suppress  such,  as  wholly  fruitless  and 
worthless  ;  which  are  now  all  grown  dark  to  me  !  The  passage 
about  Frank  is  as  follows, — likewise  elucidative  of  Sterling  and 
his  cloud-compellings,  and  duels  with  the  shadows,  about  this 
time  : 

'  Edgeworth  seems  to  me  not  to  have  yet  gone  beyond  a 
'  mere  notional  life.  It  is  manifest  that  he  has  no  knowledge  of 
'  the  necessity  of  a  progress  from  Wissen  to  Weseri  (say,  Know- 
ing to  Being]  ;  '  and  one  therefore  is  not  surprised  that  he 
1  should  think  Kant  a  sufficient  hierarch.  I  know  very  little  of 
'  Kant's  doctrine  ;  but  I  made  out  from  Edgeworth  what  seems 
'  to  me  afundamental  unsoundness  in  his  moral  scheme :  namely, 
'  the  assertion  of  the  certainty  of  a  heavenly  Futurity  for  man, 
'  because  the  idea  of  duty  involves  that  of  merit  or  reward.  Now 
'  duty  seems  rather  to  exclude  merit ;  and  at  all  events,  the 
'  notion  of  external  reward  is  a  mere  empirical  appendage,  and 
'  has  none  but  an  arbitrary  connexion  with  ethics. — I  regard  it 
'  as  a  very  happy  thing  for  Edgeworth  that  he  has  come  to  Eng- 
'  land.  In  Italy  he  probably  would  never  have  gained  any  in- 
'  tuition  into  the  reality  of  Being  as  different  from  a  mere  power 
'  of  Speculating  and  Perceiving  ;  and  of  course  without  this,  he 
'  can  never  reach  to  more  than  the  merest  Gnosis  ;  which  taken 
'  alone  is  a  poor  inheritance,  a  box  of  title-deeds  to  an  estate 
'  which  is  covered  with  lava,  or  sunk  under  the  sea.'1 

This  good  little  Edgeworth  had  roved  extensively  about  the 
Continent ;  had  married  a  young  Spanish  wife,  whom  by  a  ro- 
mantic accident  he  came  upon  in  London  :  having  really  good 

1  Hare,  pp.  Ixxiv.  Ixxii. 


n6  JOHN  STERLING. 

scholarship,  and  consciousness  of  faculty  and  fidelity,  he  now 
hoped  to  find  support  in  preparing  young  men  for  the  University, 
in  taking  pupils  to  board  ;  and  with  this  view,  was  endeavour- 
ing to  form  an  establishment  somewhere  in  the  environs  ; — 
ignorant  that  it  is  mainly  the  Clergy  whom  simple  persons  trust 
with  that  trade  at  present ;  that  his  want  of  a  patent  of  ortho- 
doxy, not  to  say  his  inexorable  secret  heterodoxy  of  mind,  would 
far  override  all  other  qualifications  in  the  estimate  of  simple 
persons,  who  are  afraid  of  many  things,  and  are  not  afraid  of 
hypocrisy  which  is  the  worst  and  one  irremediably  bad  thing. 
Poor  Edgeworth  tried  this  business  for  a  while,  but  found  no 
success  at  all ;  went  across,  after  a  year  or  two,  to  native  Edge- 
worthstown,  in  Longford,  to  take  the  management  of  his  bro- 
ther's estate  ;  in  which  function  it  was  said  he  shone,  and  had 
quite  given-up  philosophies  and  speculations,  and  become  a  taci- 
turn grim  landmanager  and  county  magistrate,  likely  to  do  much 
good  in  that  department ;  when  we  learned  next  that  he  was 
dead,  that  we  should  see  him  no  more.  The  good  little  Frank ! 

One  day  in  the  spring  of  1836,  I  can  still  recollect,  Sterling 
had  proposed  to  me,  by  way  of  wide  ramble,  useful  for  various 
ends,  that  I  should  walk  with  him  to  Eltham  and  back,  to  see 
this  Edgeworth,  whom  I  also  knew  a  little.  We  went  accord- 
ingly together  ;  walking  rapidly,  as  was  Sterling's  wont,  and  no 
doubt  talking  extensively.  It  probably  was  in  the  end  of  Feb- 
ruary :  I  can  remember  leafless  hedges,  gray  driving  clouds ; — 
procession  of  boarding-school  girls  in  some  quiet  part  of  the 
route.  I  very  well  recollect  the  big  Edgeworth  house  at  Eltham ; 
the  big  old  Palace  now  a  barn  ;— in  general,  that  the  day  was 
full  of  action  ;  and  likewise  that  rain  came  upon  us  in  our  re- 
turn, and  that  the  closing  phasis  was  a  march  along  Piccadilly, 
still  full  of  talk,  but  now  under  decided  wet,  and  in  altogether 
muddy  circumstances.  This  was  the  last  walk  that  poor  Ster- 
ling took  for  a  great  many  months. 

He  had  been  ailing  for  some  time,  little  known  to  me,  and 
too  disregardful  himself  of  minatory  symptoms,  as  his  wont  was, 
so  long  as  strength  remained  ;  and  this  rainy  walk  of  ours  had 
now  brought  the  matter  to  a  crisis.  He  was  shut-up  from  all 
visitors  whatsoever  ;  the  doctors  and  his  family  in  great  alarm 
about  him,  he  himself  coldly  professing  that  death  at  no  great 


TO  BORDEAUX.  117 

distance  was  very  likely.  So  it  lasted  for  a  long  anxious  while. 
I  remember  tender  messages  to  and  from  him  ;  loan  of  books, 
particularly  some  of  Goethe's  which  he  then  read, — still  without 
recognition  of  much  worth  in  them.  At  length  some  select  friends 
were  occasionally  admitted  ;  signs  of  improvement  began  to 
appear  ; — and  in  the  bright  twilight,  Kensington  Gardens  were 
green,  and  sky  and  earth  were  hopeful,  as  one  went  to  make 
inquiry.  The  summer  brilliancy  was  abroad  over  the  world  be- 
fore we  fairly  saw  Sterling  again  sub  dio. — Here  was  a  fatal 
hand  on  the  wall ;  checking  tragically  whatsoever  wide-drawn 
schemes  might  be  maturing  themselves  in  such  a  life  ;  sternly 
admonitory  that  all  schemes  must  be  narrow,  and  admitted  pro- 
blematic. 

Sterling,  by  the  doctor's  order,  took  to  daily  riding  in  sum- 
mer ;  scouring  far  and  wide  on  a  swift  strong  horse,  and  was 
allowed  no  other  exercise  ;  so  that  my  walks  with  him  had,  to 
my  sorrow,  ended.  We  saw  him  otherwise  pretty  often ;  but  it 
was  only  for  moments  in  comparison.  His  life,  at  any  rate,  in 
these  circumstances  was  naturally  devoid  of  composure.  The 
little  Bayswater  establishment,  with  all  its  schemes  of  peaceable 
activity  on  the  small  or  on  the  great  scale,  was  evidently  set 
adrift ;  the  anchor  lifted,  and  Sterling  and  his  family  again  at 
sea,  for  farther  uncertain  voyaging.  Here  is  not  thy  rest  ;  not 
here  : — where,  then  !  The  question,  What  to  do  even  for  next 
autumn  ?  had  become  the  pressing  one. 

A  rich  Bordeaux  merchant,  an  Uncle  of  his  Wife's,  of  the 
name  of  Mr.  Johnston,  possessed  a  sumptuous  mansion  and 
grounds,  which  he  did  not  occupy,  in  the  environs  of  that  south- 
ern City  :  it  was  judged  that  the  climate  might  be  favourable  ; 
to  the  house  and  its  copious  accommodation  there  was  welcome 
ingress,  if  Sterling  chose  to  occupy  it.  Servants  were  not  needed, 
servants  and  conveniences  enough,  in  the  big  solitary  mansion 
with  its  marble  terraces,  were  already  there.  Conveniences 
enough  within,  and  curiosities  without.  It  is  the  '  South  of 
France,'  with  its  Gascon  ways  ;  the  Garonne,  Garumna  river, 
the  Gironde  and  Montaigne's  country  :  here  truly  are  invita- 
tions. 

In  short,  it  was  decided  that  he  and  his  family  should  move 
thither  ;  there,  under  warmer  skies,  begin  a  new  residence. 
The  doctors  promised  improvement,  if  the  place  suited  for  a 


nS  JOHN  STERLING. 

permanency ;  there  at  least,  much  more  commodiously  than 
elsewhere,  he  might  put  over  the  rigorous  period  of  this  present 
year.  Sterling  left  us,  I  find  noted,  '  on  the  first  of  August  1 836.' 
The  name  of  his  fine  foreign  mansion  is  Belsito  ;  in  the  village 
of  Floirac,  within  short  distance  of  Bordeaux. 

Counting-in  his  voyage  to  the  West  Indies,  this  is  the  second 
of  some  five  health-journeys  which,  sometimes  with  his  family, 
sometimes  without,  he  had  to  make  in  all.  '  Five  forced  pere- 
grinities  ;'  which,  in  their  sad  and  barren  alternation,  are  the 
main  incidents  of  his  much -obstructed  life  henceforth.  Five 
swift  flights,  not  for  any  high  or  low  object  in  life,  but  for  life 
itself ;  swift  jerkings  aside  from  whatever  path  Or  object  you 
might  be  following,  to  escape  the  scythe  of  Death.  On  such 
terms  had  poor  Sterling  henceforth  to  live  ;  and  surely  with  less 
complaint,  with  whatever  result  otherwise,  no  man  could  do  it. 

His  health  prospered  at  Bordeaux.  He  had,  of  course,  new 
interests  and  objects  of  curiosity;  but  when  once  the  household 
was  settled  in  its  new  moorings,  and  the  first  dazzle  of  strange- 
ness fairly  over,  he  returned  to  his  employments  and  pursuits, 
— which  were,  in  gpod  part,  essentially  the  old  ones.  His  chosen 
books,  favourite  instructors  of  the  period,  were  with  him ;  at 
least  the  world  of  his  own  thoughts  was  with  him,  and  the  grand 
ever-recurring  question  :  What  to  do  with  that ;  How  best  to 
regulate  that  ? 

I  remember  kind  and  happy-looking  Letters  from  him  at 
Bordeaux,  rich  enough  in  interests  and  projects,  in  activities  and 
emotions.  He  looked  abroad  over  the  Gironde  country,  over 
the  towers  and  quais  of  Bordeaux  at  least  with  a  painter's  eye, 
winch  he  rather  eminently  had,  and  very  eminently  loved  to 
exercise.  Of  human  acquaintances  he  found  not  many  to  attract 
him,  nor  could  he  well  go  much  into  deeper  than  pictorial  con- 
nexion with  the  scene  around  him ;  but  on  this  side  too,  he 
was,  as  usual,  open  and  willing.  A  learned  young  German,  tutor 
in  some  family  of  the  neighbourhood,  was  admitted  frequently 
to  see  him ;  probably  the  only  scholar  in  those  parts  with  whom 
he  could  converse  of  an  evening.  One  of  my  Letters  contained 
notice  of  a  pilgrimage  he  had  made  to  the  old  Chateau  of  Mon- 
taigne ;  a  highly  interesting  sight  to  a  reading  man.  He  wrote 
to  me  also  about  the  Caves  of  St.  Emilion  or  Libourne,  hiding- 


TO  BORDEAUX.  119 

place  of  Barbaroux,  Potion  and  other  Girondins,  concerning 
whom  I  was  then  writing.  Nay  here  is  the  Letter  itself  still 
left ;  and  I  may  as  well  insert  it,  as  a  relic  of  that  time.  The 
projected  'walking  expedition'  into  France;  the  vision  of  Mon- 
taigne's old  House,  Barbaroux's  death-scene ;  the  Chinese  hi- 
Kiao-Li  or  Two  Fair  Cousins :  all  these  things  arc  long  since 
asleep,  as  if  dead ;  and  affect  one's  own  mind  with  a  sense  ol 
strangeness  when  resuscitated  : 

'  To  Thomas  Carlyle,  Esq.,  Chelsea,  London. 

'  Belsito,  near  Bordeaux,  26th  October  1836. 

'  MY  DEAR  CARLYLE, — I  have  to  thank  you  for  two  Letters, 
'  which,  unlike  other  people's,  have  the  writer's  signature  in 
1  every  word  as  well  as  at  the  end.  Your  assurances  of  remem- 
'  brance  and  kindness  were  by  no  means  necessary,  but  are  not 
'  at  all  less  pleasant.  The  patronage  you  bestow  on  my  old 
'  stick  requires  the  acknowledgment  from  me  which  my  care 
'  of  its  education  had  not  succeeded  in  teaching  it  to  express  for 
'  itself.  May  your  more  genial  and  more  masculine  treatment 
'  be  more  effectual !  I  remember  that  1  used  to  fling  it  along 
'  the  broad  walk  in  Kensington  Gardens,  for  Edward  to  run 
'  after  it ;  and  I  suspect  you  will  find  the  scars  resulting  from 
'  the  process,  on  the  top  of  the  hook. 

'  If  the  purveyors  of  religion  and  its  implements  to  this 
'  department  of  France  supplied  such  commodities  as  waxen 
'  hecatombs,  I  would  sacrifice  one  for  the  accomplishment  of 
'  your  pedestrian  design ;  and  am  already  meditating  an  appro- 
'  priate  invocation,  sermone  pedestri.  Pray  come,  in  the  first 
'  fine  days  of  spring;  or  rather  let  us  look  forward  to  your  com- 
'  ing,  for  as  to  the  fact,  where  may  both  or  either  of  us  be  before 
'  this  day  six  months  ?  I  am  not,  however,  resolute  as  to  any 
'  plan  of  my  own  that  would  take  me  either  along  the  finite  or 
'  the  infinite  sea.  I  still  bear  up,  and  do  my  best  here  ;  and 
'  have  no  distinct  schemes  of  departure  :  for  I  am  well,  and 
'  well  situated  at  present,  and  enjoy  my  books,  my  leisure,  and 
'  the  size  and  comfort  of  the  house  I  live  in.  I  shall  go,  if  go 
'  I  must ;  and  not  otherwise.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that, 
'  ii"  driven  away  later  in  the  year,  I  might  try  Italy, — probably 
'  at  first  Pisa  ;  and  ii  so,  should  hope,  in  spite  of  cholera,  to 


120  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  see  your  Brother,  who  would  be  helpful  both  to  mind  and 
1  body.  When  you  write  to  him,  pray  just  touch  with  your  pen 
'  the  long  cobweb  thread  that  connects  me  with  him,  and  which 
'  is  more  visible  and  palpable  about  eighteen  inches  above  your 
'  writing-table  than  anywhere  else  in  this  much  becobwebbed 
'  world. 

'  Your  account  of  the  particular  net  you  occupy  in  the  great 
'  reticulation  is  not  veiy  consolatory  ; — I  should  be  sorry  if  it 
'  were  from  thinking  of  it  as  a  sort  of.  paries  proximus.  When 
'  you  slip  the  collar  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  fine 
'  weather  comes  round  again,  and  my  life  becomes  insurable  at 
'  less  than  fifty  per  cent,  I  hope  to  see  you  as  merry  as  Philina 
'  or  her  husband,  in  spite  of  your  having  somewhat  more  wis- 
'  dom. — And  all  these  good  things  may  be,  in  some  twenty-six 
'  weeks  or  less  ;  a  space  of  time  for  which  the  paltriest  Dutch 
'  clock  would  be  warranted  to  go,  without  more  than  an  hour 
'  or  two  of  daily  variation.  I  trust  we  have,  both  of  us,  souls 
'  above  those  that  tick  in  country  kitchens  ! — Of  your  Wife  I 
'  think  you  say  nothing  in  your  last.  Why  does  she  not  write 
'  to  me?  Is  it  because  she  will  not  stoop  to  nonsense,  and  that 
'  would  be  the  only  proper  answer  to  an  uncanonical  epistle  I 
'  sent  her  while  in  Scotland?  Tell  her  she  is,  at  all  events,  sure 
'  of  being  constantly  remembered ;  for  I  play  backgammon  with 
'  Charles  Barton  for  want  of  any  one  to  play  chess  with. 

'  Of  my  expedition  to  Montaigne's  old  House  I  cannot  say 
'  much  :  for  I  indited  Notes  thereof  for  my  own  use,  and  also 
'  wrote  something  about  it  to  Mr.  Dunn  ;  which  is  as  much  as 
'  the  old  walls  would  well  bear.  It  is  truly  an  interesting  place ; 
'  for  it  does  not  seem  as  if  a  stone  had  been  touched  since 
'  Montaigne's  time ;  though  his  house  is  still  inhabited,  and  the 
'  apartment  that  he  describes  in  the  Essai  des  Trots  Commerces 
'  might,  barring  the  evident  antiquity,  have  been  built  yesterday 
'  to  realise  his  account.  The  rafters  of  the  room  which  was  his 
'  library  have  still  his  inscriptions  on  their  lower  faces :  all  very 
'  characteristic  ;  many  from  Ecclesiastes.  The  view  is  open  all 
'  round ;  over  a  rather  flat,  elevated  country,  apparently  clayey 
'  ploughed  lands,  with  little  wood,  no  look  of  great  population, 
'  and  here  and  there  a  small  stone  windmill  with  a  conical  roof. 
'  The  village  church  close  by  is  much  older  than  Montaigne's 


TO  BORDEAUX.  121 

'  day.  His  house  looks  just  as  he  describes  it :  a  considerable 
'  building  that  never  was  at  all  fortified. 

'  St.  Emilion  I  had  not  time  to  see  or  learn  much  of ;  but 
'  the  place  looks  all  very  old.  A  very  small  town,  built  of  stone ; 
'  jostled  into  a  sort  of  ravine,  or  large  quarry,  in  the  slope  from 
'  the  higher  table-land  towards  the  Dordogne.  Quite  on  the 
'  ridge,  at  the  top  of  the  town,  is  an  immense  Gothic  steeple, 
'  that  would  suit  a  cathedral,  but  has  under  it  only  a  church 
'  (now  abandoned)  cut  out  in  the  sandstone  rock,  and  of  great 
'  height  and  size.  There  is  a  large  church  above  ground  close 
'  by,  and  several  monastic  buildings.  Of  the  Caves  I  only  saw 
'  some  entrances.  I  fancy  they  are  all  artificial,  but  am  not 
'  sure.  The  Dordogne  is  in  sight  below  in  the  plain.  I  can- 
'  not  lay  my  hands  on  any  Book  for  you  which  gives  an  account 
'  of  the  time  the  Girondins  spent  here  ;  or  who  precisely  those 
'  were  that  made  this  their  hiding-place. 

'  I  was  prepared  for  what  you  say  oiMirabetm  and  its  post- 
'  ponement,  from  an  advertisement  of  the  Articles,  in  the 
'  Times: — but  this  I  only  saw  the  day  after  I  had  written  to 
'  Paris  to  order  the  new  Number'  of  the  London-and-  Westmin- 
ster '  by  mail ;  so  I  consider  the  Editor  in  my  debt  for  ten  or 
'  twelve  francs  of  postage,  which  I  hope  to  recover  when  we  get 
'  our  equitable  adjustment  of  all  things  in  this  world. 

'  I  have  now  read  through  Saint  Simon's  twenty  volumes  ; 
'  which  have  well  repaid  me.  The  picture  of  the  daily  detail 
'  of  a  despotic  court  is  something  quite  startling  from  its  vivid- 
'  ness  and  reality  ;  and  there  is  perhaps  a  much  deeper  interest 
'  in  his  innumerable  portraits  and  biographies, — many  of  which, 
'  told  in  the  quietest  way,  are  appalling  tragedies ;  and  the  best, 
'  I  think,  have  something  painful  and  delirious  about  them.  I 
'  have  also  lounged  a  good  deal  over  the  Biographic  Universelle 
'  and  Bayle.  The  last  I  never  looked  into  before.  One  would 
'  think  he  had  spent  his  whole  life  in  the  Younger  Pliny's 
'  windowless  study;  had  never  seen,  except  by  candlelight;  and 
'  thought  the  Universe  a  very  good  raw-material  for  books. 
1  But  he  is  an  amiable  honest  man  ;  and  more  good  material 
'  than  enough  was  spent  in  making  the  case  for  that  logical 
'  wheel-work  of  his.  As  to  the  Biographic  Universelle,  you 
'  know  it  better  than  I.  I  wish  Craik,  or  some  such  man, 
'  could  be  employed  on  an  English  edition,  in  which  the  British 


122  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  lives  should  be  better  done. — I  sent  for  the  Chinese  Cousins 
'  as  soon  as  I  received  your  Letter ;  but  the  answer  wns,  that 
'  the  book  is  out  of  print. 

'  Have  you  seen  the  last  Number  of  the  Foreign  Review  j 
'  where  there  is  an  article  on  Eckermann's  Conversations  of 
'  Goethe,  written  by  a  stupid  man,  but  giving  extracts  of  much 
'  interest  ?  Goethe's  talk  has  been  running  in  my  head  for  the 
'  last  fortnight ;  and  I  find  I  am  more  inclined  than  I  was  to 
'  value  the  flowers  that  grow  (as  on  the  Alps)  on  the  margin 
'  ol  his  glaciers.  I  shall  read  his  Dichtung  imd  Wahrheit, 
'  and  Italian  Tour,  when  the  books  come  in  my  way.  But  I 
'  have  still  little  hope  of  finding  in  him  what  I  should  look  for 
'  in  Jean  Paul,  and  what  I  possess  in  some  others  :  a  ground 
'  prolonging  and  encircling  that  on  which  I  myself  rest. 

'  I  suppose  the  dramatic  projects  of  Henry  Taylor  (to  whom 
'  remember  me  cordially)  are  mainly  Thomas  a  Becket.  I  too 
'  have  been  scheming  Tragedies  and  Novels  ; —  but  with  little 
'  notion  of  doing  more  than  play  the  cloud-compeller,  for  want 
'  of  more  substantial  work  on  earth.  I  do  not  know  why,  but 
'  my  thoughts  have,  since  I  reached  this,  been  running  more  on 
'  History  and  Poetry  than  on  Theology  and  Philosophy,  more 
'  indeed  than  for  years  past.  I  suppose  it  is  a  providential  ar- 

•  rangement,  that  I  may  find  out  I  am  good  for  as  little  in  the 
'  one  way  as  the  other.  —  In  the  mean  time  do  not  let  my 

•  monopoly  of  your  correspondence  be  only  a.  nominal  privilege. 
'  Accept  my  Wife's  kindest  remembrances  ;  give  my  love  to 
'  yours.     Tell  me  if  I  can  do  anything  for  you.     Do  not  let  the 
«  ides  of  March  go  by  without  starting  for  the  Garonne  :-^and 
<  believe  me, — Yours  jusgu'd  la  mart  sans  phrase, 

•JOHN  STERLING.' 

"La  mort  sans  phrase"  was  Sieyes's  vote  in  the  Trial  of 
Louis.  Sterling's  '  Notes  for  his  own  use,'  which  are  here  men- 
tioned in  reference  to  that  Montaigne  pilgrimage  of  his,  were 
employed  not  long  after,  in  an  Essay  on  Montaigne.2  He  also 
read  the  Chinese  Cousins,  and  loved  it, — as  I  had  expected. 
Of  which  take  this  memorandum  :  '  lu-Kiao-Li,  on  les  Deux 
'  Cousines;  translated  by  Remusat ; — well  translated  into  Eng- 
1  lish  also,  from  his  version  ;  and  one  of  the  notablest  Chinese 
2  Londvn  and  Westminster  Review ;  Hare,  i.  129. 


TO  BORDEAUX.  123 

1  books.  A  book  in  fact  by  a  Chinese  man  of  genius  j  most 
'  strangely  but  recognisably  such, — man  of  genius  made  on  the 
'  dragon  pattern  !  Recommended  to  me  by  Carlyle ;  to  him  by 
'  Leigh  Hunt.'  The  other  points  need  no  explanation. 

By  this  time,  I  conclude,  as  indeed  this  Letter  indicates,  the 
theological  tumult  was  decidedly  abating  in  him  ;  to  which  re- 
sult this  still  hermit-life  in  the  Gironde  would  undoubtedly  con* 
tribute.  Tholuck,  Schleiermacher,  and  the  war  of  articles  and 
rubrics,  were  left  in  the  far  distance  ;  Nature's  blue  skies,  and 
awful  eternal  verities,  were  once  more  around  one,  and  small 
still  voices,  admonitory  of  many  thihgs,  could  in  the  beautiful 
solitude  freely  reach  the  heart.  Theologies,  rubrics,  surplices, 
church-articles,  and  this  enormous  ever-repeated  thrashing  of 
the  straw  ?  A  world  of  rotten  straw ;  thrashed  all  into  powder  • 
filling  the  Universe  and  blotting-out  the  stars  and  worlds  : — 
Heaven  pity  you  with  such  a  thrashing-floor  for  world,  and  its 
dnaggled  dirty  farthing-candle  for  sun  !  There  is  surely  other 
worship  possible  for  the  heart  of  man  ;  there  should  be  other 
work,  or  none  at  all,  for  the  intellect  and  creative  faculty  of 
man  ! — 

It  was  here,  I  find,  that  Literature  first  again  decisively  began 
to  dawn  on  Sterling  as  the  goal  he  ought  to  aim  at.  To  this, 
with  his  poor  broken  opportunities  and  such  inward  faculties  as 
were  given  him,  it  became  gradually  clearer  that  he  ought  alto- 
gether to  apply  himself.  Such  result  was  now  decisively  begin- 
ning for  him  ;  the  original  bent  of  his  mind,  the  dim  mandate 
of  all  the  facts  in  his  outward  and  inward  condition  ;  evidently 
the  one  wholesome  tendency  for  him,  which  grew  ever  clearer 
to  the  end  of  his  course,  and  gave  at  least  one  steady  element, 
and  that  the  central  one,  in  his  fluctuating  existence  henceforth. 
It  was  years  still  before  he  got  the  inky  tints  of  that  Coleridgean 
adventure  completely  bleached  from  his  mind ;  but  here  the  pro- 
cess had  begun, — and  I  doubt  not,  we  have  to  thank  the  soli- 
tude of  Floirac  for  it  a  little  ;  which  is  some  consolation  for  the 
illness  that  sent  him  thither. 

His  best  hours  here  were  occupied  in  purely  literary  occupa- 
tions ;  in  attempts  at  composition  on  his  own  footing  again. 
Unluckily  in  this  too  the  road  for  him  was  now  far  away,  after 
so  many  years  of  aberration  ;  true  road  not  to  be  found  all  at 


124  JOHN  STERLING. 

once.  But  at  least  he  was  seeking  it  again.  The  Sexton's 
Daughter,  which  he  composed  here  this  season,  did  by  no  means 
altogether  please  us  as  a  Poem  ;  but  it  was,  or  deserved  to  be, 
very  welcome  as  a  symptom  of  spiritual  return  to  the  open  air. 
Adieu,  ye  thrashing-floors  of  rotten  straw,  with  bleared  tallow- 
light  for  sun  ;  to  you  adieu  !  The  angry  sordid  dust-whirl- 
winds begin  to  allay  themselves  ;  settle  into  soil  underfoot, 
where  their  place  is  :  glimpses,  call  them  distant  intimations 
still  much  veiled,  of  the  everlasting  azure,  and  a  much  higher 
and  wider  priesthood  than  that  under  copes  and  mitres,  and 
wretched  dead  mediaeval  monkeries  and  extinct  traditions.  This 
was  perhaps  the  chief  intellectual  result  of  Sterling's  residence 
at  Bordeaux,  and  flight  to  the  Gironde  in  pursuit  of  health  ; 
which  does  not  otherwise  deserve  to  count  as  an  epoch  or 
chapter  with  him. 

In  the  course  of  the  summer  and  autumn  1837,  I  do  not 
now  find  at  what  exact  dates,  he  made  two  journeys  from  Bor- 
deaux to  England  ;  the  first  by  himself,  on  various  small  spe- 
cific businesses,  and  uncertain  outlooks  ;  the  second  with  his 
family,  having  at  last,  after  hesitation,  decided  on  removal  from 
those  parts.  '  The  cholera  had  come  to  France  ;' — add  to 
which,  I  suppose,  his  solitude  at  Belsito  was  growing  irksome, 
and  home  and  merry  England,  in  comparison  with  the  mono- 
tony of  the  Gironde,  had  again  grown  inviting.  He  had  vaguely 
purposed  to  make  for  Nice  in  the  coming  winter  ;  but  that  also 
the  cholera  or  other  causes  prevented.  His  Brother  Anthony, 
a  gallant  young  soldier,  was  now  in  England,  home  from  the 
Ionian  Islands  on  a  visit  to  old  friends  and  scenes  ;  and  that 
doubtless  was  a  new  and  strong  inducement  hitherward.  It 
was  this  summer,  I  think,  that  the  two  Brothers  .revisited  to- 
gether the  scene  of  their  early  boyhood  at  Llanblethian  ;  a 
touching  pilgrimage,  of  which  John  gave  me  account  in  refer- 
ence to  something  similar  of  my  own  in  Scotland,  where  I 
then  was. 

Here,  in  a  Letter  to  his  Mother,  is  notice  of  his  return  from 
the  first  of  these  sallies  into  England  ;  and  how  doubtful  all  at 
Bordeaux  still  was,  and  how  pleasant  some  little  certainties  at 
home.  The  '  Annie'  of  whose  '  engagement'  there  is  mention, 
was  Miss  Anna  Barton,  Mrs.  John  Sterling's  younger  sister, 


TO  BORDEAUX.  125 

who,  to  the  joy  of  more  than  one  party,  as  appears,  had  accepted 
his  friend  Maurice  while  Sterling  was  in  England  : 

'  To  Mrs.  Sterling,  Knightsbridge,  London. 

'  Floirac,  7th  August  1837. 

'  MY  DEAR  MOTHER, — I  am  now  beginning  to  feel  a  little 
'  less  dizzy  and  tired,  and  will  try  to  write  you  a  few  lines  to 
'  tell  you  of  my  fortunes. 

'  I  found  my  things  all  right  at  the  Albion.  Unluckily,  the 
'  steamer  could  not  start  from  Brighton,  and  I  was  obliged  to 
'  go  over  to  Shoreham  ;  but  the  weather  cleared  up,  and  we 
'  had  rather  a  smooth  passage  into  France.  The  wind  was  off 
'  the  French  coast,  so  that  we  were  in  calm  water  at  last.  We 
'  got  in  about  ten  o'clock  ; — too  late  for  the  Custom-house. 
'  Next  morning  I  settled  all  my  business  early  ;  but  was  de- 
'  tained  for  horses  till  nine, — owing  to  the  nearness  of  the  Duke 
'  of  Orleans,  which  had  caused  a  great  stir  on  the  roads.  I 
'  was  for  the  same  reason  stopped  at  Rouen  ;  and  I  was  once 
'  again  stopped,  on  Saturday  for  an  hour,  waiting  for  horses  ; 
'  otherwise  I  travelled  without  any  delay,  and  in  the  finest  wea- 
'  ther,  from  Dieppe  to  this  place,  which  I  reached  on  Sunday 
'  morning  at  five.  I  took  the  shortest  road,  by  Alengon,  Saumur 
'  and  Niort  ;  and  was  very  well  satisfied  with  my  progress, — 
'  at  least,  till  about  Blaye,  on  the  Garonne,  where  there  was  a 
'  good  deal  of  deep  sand,  which,  instead  of  running  merrily 
'  through  the  hour-glass  of  Time,  on  the  contrary  clogged  the 
'  wheels  of  my  carriage.  At  last,  however,  I  reached  home  ; 
'  and  found  everybody  well,  and  glad  to  see  me. — I  felt  tired 
'  and  stupid,  and  not  at  all  disposed  to  write.  But  I  am  now 
'  sorry  I  did  not  overcome  my  laziness,  and  send  you  a  line  to 
'  announce  my  safe  arrival ;  for  I  know  that  at  a  distance 
'  people  naturally  grow  anxious,  even  without  any  reason. 

'  It  seems  now  almost  like  a  dream,  that  I  have  ever  been 
'  away  from  hence.  But  Annie's  engagement  to  Maurice  is,  I 
'  trust,  a  lasting  memorial  of  my  journey.  I  find  Susan  quite 
'  as  much  pleased  as  I  expected  with  her  Sister's  prospects  ; 
'  and  satisfied  that  nothing  could  have  so  well  secured  her  hap- 
'  piness,  and  mental  (or  rather  cordial)  advancement  as  her 
'  union  to  such  a  man.  On  the  whole,  it  is  a  great  happiness 
'  to  me  to  look  back  boih  to  this  matter,  and  on  the  kindness 


126  JOHN  STERLING. 

and  affection  of  the  relatives  and  friends  whom  I  saw  in  Eng- 
land. It  will  be  a  very  painful  disappointment  to  me  if  I 
should  be  obliged  to  pass  the  next  summer  without  taking  my 
Wife  and  Children  to  our  own  country : — we  will,  at  all  events, 
enjoy  the  hope  of  my  doing  so.  In  the  mean  time  I  trust  you 
will  enjoy  your  Tour,  and  on  your  return  spend  a  quiet  and 
cheerful  winter.  Love  to  my  Father,  and  kindest  regards  to 
Mrs.  Carlyle. — Your  affectionate  son,  JOHN  STERLING.' 


CHAPTER  V. 

TO  MADEIRA. 

STERLING'S  dubieties  as  to  continuing  at  Bordeaux  were 
quickly  decided.  The  cholera  in  France,  the  cholera  in  Nice, 
the — Iri  fact  his  moorings  were  now  loose  ;  and  having  been 
fairly  at  sea,  he  never  could  anchor  himself  here  again.  Very 
shortly  after  this  Letter,  he  left  Belsito  again  (for  good,  as  it 
proved)  ;  and  returned  to  England  with  his  household,  there 
to  consider  what  should  next  be  done. 

On  my  return  from  Scotland,  that  year,  perhaps  late  in  Sep- 
tember, I  remember  finding  him  lodged  straitly  but  cheerfully, 
and  in  happy  humour,  in  a  little  cottage  on  Blackheath  ; 
whither  his  Father  one  day  persuaded  me  to  drive  out  with  him 
for  dinner.  Our  welcome,  I  can  still  recollect,  was  conspicu- 
ously cordial  ;  the  place  of  dinner  a  kind  of  upper  room,  half- 
garret  and  full  of  books,  which  seemed  to  be  John's  place  of 
study.  From  a  shelf,  I  remember  also,  the  good  soul  took 
down  a  book  modestly  enough  bound  in  three  volumes,  lettered 
on  the  back  Carlyle 's  French  Revolution,  which  had  been  pub- 
lished lately  ;  this  he  with  friendly  banter  bade  me  look  at  as 
a  first  symptom,  small  but  significant,  that  the  book  was  not  to 
die  all  at  once.  "  One  copy  of  it  at  least  might  hope  to  last 
the  date  of  sheep-leather,"  I  admitted, — and  in  my  then  mood 
the  little  fact  was  welcome.  Our  dinner,  frank  and  happy  on 
the  part  of  Sterling,  was  peppered  with  abundant  jolly  satire 
irom  his  Father  :  before  tea,  I  took  myself  away  ;  towards 
Woolwich,  I  remember,  where  probably  there  was  another  call 
to  make,  and  passage  homeward  by  steamer :  Sterling  strode 


TO  MADEIRA.  127 

along  with  me  a  good  bit  of  road  in  the  bright  sunny  evening, 
full  of  lively  friendly  talk,  and  altogether  kind  and  amiable  ; 
and  beautifully  sympathetic  with  the  loads  he  thought  he  saw 
on  me,  forgetful  of  his  own.  We  shook  hands  on  the  road  near 
the  foot  of  Shooter's  Hill  : — at  which  point  dim  oblivious  clouds 
rush  down  ;  and  of  small  or  great  I  remember  nothing  more  in 
my  history  or  his  for  some  time. 

Besides  running  much  about  among  friends,  and  holding 
counsels  for  the  management  of  the  coming  winter,  Sterling 
was  now  considerably  occupied  with  Literature  again  ;  and 
indeed  may  be  said  to  have  already  definitely  taken  it  up  as 
the  one  practical  pursuit  left  for  him.  Some  correspondence 
with  Blackwood's  Magazine  was  opening  itself,  under  promis- 
ing omens  :  now,  and  more  and  more  henceforth,  he  began  to 
look  on  Literature  as  his  real  employment,  after  all ;  and  was 
prosecuting  it  with  his  accustomed  loyalty  and  ardour.  And 
he  continued  ever  afterwards,  in  spite  of  such  fitful  circum- 
stances and  uncertain  outward  fluctuations  as  his  were  sure  of 
being,  to  prosecute  it  steadily  with  all  the  strength  he  had. 

One  evening  about  this  time,  he  came  down  to  us,  to 
Chelsea,  most  likely  by  appointment  and  with  stipulation  for 
privacy  ;  and  read,  for  our  opinion,  his  Poem  of  the  Sexton's 
Daughter,  which  we  now  first  heard  of.  The  judgment  in  this 
house  was  friendly,  but  not  the  most  encouraging.  We  found 
the  piece  monotonous,  cast  in  the  mould  of  Wordsworth,  defi- 
cient in  real  human  fervour  or  depth  of  melody,  dallying  on 
the  borders  of  the  infantile  and  "  goody-good  ;" — in  fact,  in- 
volved still  in  the  shadows  of  the  surplice,  and  inculcating  (on 
hearsay  mainly)  a  weak  morality,  which  he  would  one  day  find 
not  to  be  moral  at  all,  but  in  good  part  maudlin-hypocritical 
and  immoral.  As  indeed  was  to  be  said  still  of  most  of  his 
performances,  especially  the  poetical  ;  a  sickly  shadow  of  the 
parish-church  still  hanging  over  them,  which  he  could  by  no 
means  recognise  for  sickly.  Imprimatur  nevertheless  was  the 
concluding  word, — with  these  grave  abatements,  and  rhacla- 
manthine  admonitions.  To  all  which  Sterling  listened  seri- 
ously and  in  the  mildest  humour.  His  reading,  it  might  have 
been  added,  had  much  hurt  the  effect  of  the  piece  :  a  dreary 
pulpit  or  even  conventicle  manner  ;  that  flattest  moaning  hoo- 
hoo  of  predetermined  pathos,  with  a  kind  oi  rocking  canter 


128  JOHN  STERLING. 

introduced  by  way  of  intonation,  each  stanza  the  exact  fellow 
of  the  other,  and  the  dull  swing  of  the  rocking-horse  duly  in 
each  ; — no  reading  could  be  more  unfavourable  to  Sterling's 
poetry  than  his  own.  Such  a  mode  of  reading,  and  indeed 
generally  in  a  man  of  such  vivacity  the  total  absence  of  all 
gifts  for  playacting  or  artistic  mimicry  in  any  kind,  was  a 
noticeable  point. 

After  much  consultation,  it  was  settled  at  last  that  Sterling 
should  go  to  Madeira  for  the  winter.  One  gray  dull  autumn 
afternoon,  towards  the  middle  of  October,  I  remember  walk- 
ing with  him  to  the  eastern  Dock  region,  to  see  his  ship,  and 
how  the  final  preparations  in  his  own  little  cabin  were  pro- 
ceeding there.  A  dingy  little  ship,  the  deck  crowded  with 
packages,  and  bustling  sailors  within  eight-and-forty  hours  of 
lifting  anchor;  a  dingy  chill  smoky  day,  as  I  have  said  withal,  and 
a  chaotic  element  and  outlook,  enough  to  make  a  friend's  heart 
sad.  I  admired  the  cheerful  careless  humour  and  brisk  acti- 
vity of  Sterling,  who  took  the  matter  all  on  the  sunny  side,  as 
he  was  wont  in  such  cases.  We  came  home  together  in  mani- 
fold talk  :  he  accepted  with  the  due  smile  my  last  contribution 
to  his  sea-equipment,  a  sixpenny  box  of  German  lucifers  pur- 
chased on  the  sudden  in  St.  James's  Street,  fit  to  be  offered 
with  laughter  or  with  tears  or  with  both  ;  he  was  to  leave  for 
Portsmouth  almost  immediately,  and  there  go  on  board.  Our 
next  news  was  of  his  safe  arrival  in  the  temperate  Isle.  Mrs. 
Sterling  and  the  children  were  left  at  Knightsbridge  ;  to  pass 
this  winter  with  his  Father  and  Mother. 

At  Madeira  Sterling  did  well :  improved  in  health  ;  was 
busy  with  much  Literature  ;  and  fell -in  with  society  which 
he  could  reckon  pleasant.  He  was  much  delighted  with  the 
scenery  of  the  place  ;  found  the  climate  wholesome  to  him 
in  a  marked  degree  ;  and,  with  good  news  from  home,  and 
kindly  interests  here  abroad,  passed  no  disagreeable  winter  in 
that  exile.  There  was  talking,  there  was  writing,  there  was 
hope  of  better  health  ;  he  rode  almost  daily,  in  cheerful  busy 
humour,  along  those  fringed  shore-roads  :  —  beautiful  leafy 
roads  and  horse -paths  ;  with  here  and  there  a  wild  cataract 
and  bridge  to  look  at  ;  and  always  with  the  soft  sky  overhead, 


TO  MADEIRA.  129 

the  dead  volcanic  mountain  on  one  hand,  and  bread  illimit- 
able sea  spread  out  on  the  other.  Here  are  two  Letters  which 
give  reasonably  good  account  of  him  : 

1  To  Thomas  Carlylc,  Esq.,  Chelsea,  London. 

'  Funchal,  Madeira,  i6th  November  1837. 

'  MY  DEAR  CARLYLE,— I  have  been  writing  a  good  many 
'  letters  all  in  a  batch,  to  go  by  the  same  opportunity  ;  and 
'  I  am  thoroughly  weary  of  writing  the  same  things  over  and 

•  over  again  to  different  people.      My  letter  to  you  therefore,  I 
'  fear,  must  have  much  of  the  character  of  remainder-biscuit. 
'  But  you  will  receive  it  as  a  proof  that  I  do  not  wish  you  to 
'  forget  me,  though  it  may  be  useless  for  any  other  purpose. 

'  I  reached  this  on  the  2d,  after  a  tolerably  prosperous  voy- 
'  age,  deformed  by  some  days  of  sea-sickness,  but  otherwise  not 
'  to  be  complained  of.  I  liked  my  twenty  fellow-passengers  far 
'  better  than  I  expected; — three  or  four  of  them  I  like  much, 
'  and  continue  to  see  frequently.  The  Island  too  is  better  than 
'  I  expected  :  so  that  my  Barataria  at  least  does  not  disappoint 
1  me.  The  bold  rough  mountains,  with  mist  about  their  sum- 
'  mits,  verdure  below,  and  a  bright  sun  over  all,  please  me  much ; 
'  and  I  ride  daily  on  the  steep  and  narrow  paved  roads,  which 
'  no  wheels  ever  journeyed  on.  The  Town  is  clean,  and  there 
'  its  merits  end  :  but  I  am  comfortably  lodged  ;  with  a  large 

•  and  pleasant  sitting-room  to  myself.     I  have  met  with  much 
'  kindness  ;  and  see  all  the  society  I  want, — though  it  is  not 
'  quite  equal  to  that  of  London,  even  excluding  Chelsea. 

'  I  have  got  about  me  what  Books  I  brought  out ;  and  have 
'  read  a  little,  and  done  some  writing  for  Blackwood, — all,  I 
'  have  the  pleasure  to  inform  you,  prose,  nay  extremely  prose. 
'  I  shall  now  be  more  at  leisure  ;  and  hope  to  get  more  steadily 
'  to  work  ;  though  I  do  not  know  what  I  shall  begin  upon.  As 
'  to  reading,  I  have  been  looking  at  Goethe,  especially  the  Life, 
'  — much  as  a  shying  horse  looks  at  a  post.  In  truth,  I  am 
'  afraid  of  him.  I  enjoy  and  admire  him  so  much,  and  feel  I 
'  could  so  easily  be  tempted  to  go  along  with  him.  And  yet  I 
'  have  a  deeply-rooted  and  old  persuasion  that  he  was  the  most 
'  splendid  of  anachronisms.  A  thoroughly,  nay  intensely  Pagan 
«  Life,  in  an  age  when  it  is  men's  duty  to  be  Christian.  I  there- 
'  fore  never  take  him  up  without  a  kind  of  inward  check,  as  if 


130  JOHIi  STERLING. 

'  I  were  trying  some  forbidden  spell ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
'  there  is  so  infinitely  much  to  be  learnt  from  him,  and  it  is  so 
'  needful  to  understand  the  world  we  live  in,  and  our  own  age, 
'  and  especially  its  greatest  minds,  that  I  cannot  bring  myself 
'  to  burn  my  books  as  the  converted  Magicians  did,  or  sink 
'  them  as  did  Prospero.  There  must,  as  I  think,  have  been 
'  some  prodigious  defect  in  his  mind,  to  let  him  hold  such  views 
'  as  his  about  women  and  some  other  things  ;  and  in  another 
'  respect,  I  find  so  much  coldness  and  hollowness  as  to  the 
'  highest  truths,  and  feel  so  strongly  that  the  Heaven  he  looks 
'  up  to  is  but  a  vault  of  ice, — that  these  two  indications,  lead- 
'  ing  to  the  same  conclusion,  go  far  to  convince  me  he  was  a 
'  profoundly  immoral  and  irreligious  spirit,  with  as  rare  facul- 
'  ties  of  intelligence  as  ever  belonged  to  any  one.  All  this  may 
'  be  mere  goody  weakness  and  twaddle,  on  my  part  :  but  it  is 
'  a  persuasion  that  I  cannot  escape  from  ;  though  I  should  feel 
'  the  doing  so  to  be  a  deliverance  from  a  most  painful  load.  If 
'  you  could  help  me,  I  heartily  wish  you  would.  I  never  take 
'  him  up  without  high  admiration,  or  lay  him  down  without  real 
'  sorrow  for  what  he  chose  to  be. 

'  I  have  been  reading  nothing  else  that  you  would  much 
'  care  for.  Southey's  Amadis  has  amused  me  ;  and  Lyell's  Geo- 
'  logy  interested  me.  The  latter  gives  one  the  same  sort  of  be- 
'  wildering  view  of  the  abysmal  extent  of  Time  that  Astronomy 
1  does  of  Space.  I  do  not  think  I  shall  take  your  advice  as  to 
1  learning  Portuguese.  It  is  said  to  be  very  ill  spoken  here  ; 
'  and  assuredly  it  is  the  most  direful  series  of  nasal  twangs  I  ever 
'  heard.  One  gets  on  quite  well  with  English. 

'  The  people  here  are,  I  believe,  in  a  very  low  condition  ; 
'  but  they  do  not  appear  miserable.  I  am  told  that  the  influ- 
'  ence  of  the  priests  makes  the  peasantry  all  Miguelites  ;  but  it 
'  is  said  that  nobody  wants  any  more  revolutions.  There  is  no 
'  appearance  of  riot  or  crime  ;  and  they  are  all  extremely  civil. 
'  I  was  much  interested  by  learning  that  Columbus  once  lived 
'  here,  before  he  found  America  and  fame.  I  have  been  to  see 
'  a  deserted  quintet  (country-house),  where  there  is  a  great  deal 
'  of  curious  old  sculpture,  in  relief,  upon  the  masonry  ;  many  of 
'  the  figures,  which  are  nearly  as  large  as  life,  representing  sol- 
'  diers  clad  and  armed  much  as  I  should  suppose  those  of  Cor- 
'  tez  were.  There  are  no  buildings  about  the  Town,  of  the 


TO  MADEIRA.  131 

'  smallest  pretensions  to  beauty  or  charm  of  any  kind.  On  the 
'  whole,  if  Madeira  were  one's  world,  life  would  certainly  rather 
'  tend  to  stagnate  ;  but  as  a  temporary  rafuge,  a  niche  in  an 
'  old  ruin  where  one  is  sheltered  from  the  shower,  it  has  great 
'  merit.  I  am  more  comfortable  and  contented  than  I  expected 
1  to  be,  so  far  from  home  and  from  everybody  I  am  closely  con- 
'  nected  with  :  but,  of  coursei  it  is  at  best  a  tolerable  exile. 

'  Tell  Mrs.  Carlyle  that  I  have  written,  since  I  have  been 
'  here,  and  am  going  to  send  to  Blackiuood,  a  humble  imitation 
'  of  her  Watch  and  Canary-Bird,  entitled  The  Suit  of  Armour 
'  and  the  Skeleton.1  I  am  conscious  that  I  am  far  from  having 
'  reached  the  depth  and  fulness  of  despair  and  mockery  which 
'  distinguish  the  original !  But  in  truth  there  is  a  lightness  of 
'  tone  about  her  style,  which  I  hold  to  be  invaluable :  where 
'  she  makes  hairstrokes,  I  make  blotches.  I  have  a  vehement 
'  suspicion  that  my  Dialogue  is  an  entire  failure  ;  but  I  cannot 
'  be  plagued  with  it  any  longer.  Tell  her  I  will  not  send  her 
'  messages,  but  will  write  to  her  soon. — Meanwhile  I  am  affec- 
'  tionately  hers  and  yours,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

The  next  is  to  his  Brother-in-law  ;  and  in  a  still  hopefuler 
tone : 

'  To  Charles  Barton,  Esq." 

'  Funchal,  Madeira,  3d  March  1838. 

'  My  DEAR  CHARLES, — I  have  often  been  thinking  of  you 
'  and  your  whereabouts  in  Germany,  and  wishing  I  knew  more 
'  about  you  ;  and  at  last  it  occurred  to  me  that  you  might  pcr- 
'  haps  have  the  same  wish  about  me,  and  that  therefore  I  should 
'  do  well  to  write  to  you. 

'  I  have  been  here  exactly  four  months,  having  arrived  on 
'  the  2d  of  November,— my  wedding-day  ;  and  though  you  per- 
'  haps  may  not  think  it  a  compliment  to  Susan,  I  have  seldom 
'  passed  four  months  more  cheerfully  and  agreeably.  I  have 
'  of  course  felt  my  absence  from  my  family,  and  missed  the 
'  society  of  my  friends  ;  for  there  is  not  a  person  here  whom  I 
'  knew  before  I  left  England.  But,  on  the  whole,  I  have  been 
'  in  good  health,  and  actively  employed.  I  have  a  good  many 

1  Came  out,  as  will  soon  appear,  in  Black-wood  (February  1838). 

2  '  Hotel  de  V Europe,  Berlin,'  added  in  Mrs.  Sterling's  hand. 


132  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  agreeable  and  valuable  acquaintances,  one  or  two  of  whom  I 
'  hope  I  may  hereafter  reckon  as  friends.  The  weather  has 
'  generally  been  fins,  and  never  cold  ;  and  the  scenery  of  the 
'  Island  is  of  a  beauty  which  you  unhappy  Northern  people  can 
'  have  little  conception  of. 

'  It  consists  of  a  great  mass  of  volcanic  mountains,  covered 
'  in  their  lower  parts  with  cottages,  vines  and  patches  of  vege- 
'  tables.  When  you  pass  through,  or  over  the  central  ridge, 
'  and  get  towards  the  North,  there  are  woods  ot  trees,  of  the 
'  laurel  kind,  covering  the  wild  steep  slopes,  and  forming  some 
'  of  the  strangest  and  most  beautiful  prospects  I  have  ever  seen. 
'  Towards  the  interior,  the  forms  of  the  hills  become  more 
'  abrupt,  and  loftier  ;  and  give  the  notion  of  very  recent  vol- 
'  canic  disturbances,  though  in  fact  there  has  been  nothing  of 
'  the  kind  since  the  discovery  of  the  Island  by  Europeans. 
'  Among  these  mountains,  the  dark  deep  precipices,  and  narrow 
'  ravines  with  small  streams  at  the  bottom  ;  the  basaltic  knobs 
'  and  ridges  on  the  summits  ;  and  the  perpetual  play  of  mist 
'  and  cloud  around  them,  under  this  bright  sun  and  clear  sky, — • 
'  form  landscapes  which  you  would  thoroughly  enjoy,  and  which 
'  I  much  wish  I  could  give  you  a  notion  of.  The  Town  is  on 
'  the  south,  and  of  course  the  sheltered  side  of  the  Island  ;  per- 
4  fectly  protected  from  the  North  and  East ;  although  we  have 
'  seen  sometimes  patches  of  bright  snow  on  the  dark  peaks  in 
'  the  distance.  It  is  a  neat  cheerful  place  ;  all  built  of  gray 
'  stone,  but  having  many  of  the  houses  coloured  white  or  red. 
'  There  is  not  a  really  handsome  building  in  it,  but  there  is  a- 
'  general  aspect  of  comfort  and  solidity.  The  shops  are  very 
'  poor.  The  English  do  not  mix  at  all  with  the  Portuguese. 
'  The  Bay  is  a  very  bad  anchorage  ;  but  is  wide,  bright  and 
'  cheerful ;  and  there  are  some  picturesque  points, — one  a  small 
'  black  island, — scattered  about  it. 

'  I  lived  till  a  fortnight  ago  in  lodgings,  having  two  rooms, 
'  one  a  very  good  one  ;  and  paying  for  everything  fifty-six  dol- 
'  lars  a  month,  the  dollar  being  four  shillings  and  twopence. 
'  This  you  will  see  is  dear ;  but  I  could  make  no  better  ar- 
'  rangement,  for  there  is  an  unusual  affluence  of  strangers  this 
'  year.  I  have  now  come  to  live  with  a  friend,  a  Dr.  Calvert, 
'  in  a  small  house  of  our  own,  where  I  am  much  more  com- 
'  fortable,  and  live  greatly  cheaper.  He  is  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Per- 


TO   MADEIRA.  133 

'  cival's  ;  about  my  age,  an  Oriel  man,  and  a  very  superior 
'  person.  I  think  the  chances  are,  we  shall  go  home  together.' 
*  #  ;\-  <  i  cannot  tell  you  of  all  the  other  people  I  have  be- 
1  come  familiar  with  ;  and  shall  only  mention  in  addition  Bing- 
'  ham  Baring,  eldest  son  of  Lord  Ashburton,  who  was  here  for 
'  some  weeks  on  account  of  a  dying  brother,  and  whom  I  saw  a 
'  great  deal  of.  He  is  a  pleasant,  very  good-natured  and  rather 
'  clever  man  ;  Conservative  Member  for  North  Staffordshire. 

'  During  the  first  two  months  I  was  here,  I  rode  a  great 
'  deal  about  the  Island,  having  a  horse  regularly;  and  was  much 
'  in  agreeable  company,  seeing  a  great  deal  of  beautiful  scenery. 
'  Since  then  the  weather  has  been  much  more  unsettled,  though 
'  not  cold  ;  and  I  have  gone  about  less,  as  I  cannot  risk  the  being 
'  wet.  But  I  have  spent  my  time  pleasantly,  reading  and  writ- 
'  ing.  I  have  written  a  good  many  things  for  Blackiuood;  one 
'  of  which,  the  Armour  and  the  Skeleton,  I  see  is  printed  in  the 
'  February  Number.  I  have  just  sent  them  a  long  Tale,  called 
'  the  Onyx  Ring',  which  cost  me  a  good  deal  of  trouble  ;  and 
'  the  extravagance  of  which,  I  think,  would  amuse  you  ;  but  its 
'  length  may  prevent  its  appearance  in  Black-wood.  If  so,  I 
'  think  I  should  make  a  volume  of  it.  I  have  also  written  some 
'  poems,  and  shall  probably  publish  the  Sexton's  Daughter  when 
'  I  return. 

1  My  health  goes  on  most  favourably.  I  have  had  no  attack 
'  of  the  chest  this  spring  ;  which  has  not  happened  to  me  since 
'  the  spring  before  we  went  to  Bonn  ;  and  I  am  told,  if  I  take 
'  care,  I  may  roll  along  for  years.  But  I  have  little  hope  of 
'  being  allowed  to  spend  the  four  first  months  of  any  year  in 
'  England  ;  and  the  question  will  be,  Whether  to  go  at  once  to 
'  Italy,  by  way  of  Germany  and  Switzerland,  with  my  family, 
'  or  to  settle  with  them  in  England,  perhaps  at  Hastings,  and 
'  go  abroad  myself  when  it  may  be  necessary.  I  cannot  decide 
'  till  I  return  ;  but  I  think  the  latter  the  most  probable. 

'  To  my  dear  Charles  I  do  not  like  to  use  the  ordinary  forms 
'  of  ending  a  letter,  for  they  are  very  inadequate  to  express  my 
'  sense  of  your  long  and  most  unvarying  kindness  ;  but  be 
'  assured  no  one  living  could  say  with  more  sincerity  that  he  is 
'  ever  affectionately  yours,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

Other  Letters  give  occasionally  views  of  the  shadier  side  of 


134  JOHN  STERLING. 

things  :  dark  broken  weather,  in  the  sky  and  in  the  mind ;  ugly 
clouds  covering  one's  poor  fitful  transitory  prospect,  for  a  time, 
as  they  might  well  do  in  Sterling's  case.  Meanwhile  we  per- 
ceive his  literary  business  is  fast  developing  itself  ;  amid  all  his 
confusions,  he  is  never  idle  long.  Some  of  his  best  Pieces, — 
the  Onyx  Ring,  for  one,  as  we  perceive, — were  written  here  this 
winter.  Out  of  the  turbid  whirlpool  of  the  days  he  strives 
assiduously  to  snatch  what  he  can. 

Sterling's  communications  with  Slackivood's  Magazine  had 
now  issued  in  some  open  sanction  of  him  by  Professor  Wilson, 
the  distinguished  presiding  spirit  of  that  Periodical ;  a  fact 
naturally  of  high  importance  to  him  under  the  literary  point  of 
view.  For  Wilson,  with  his  clear  flashing  eye  and  great  genial 
heart,  had  at  once  recognised  Sterling  ;  and  lavished  stormily, 
in  his  wild  generous  way,  torrents  of  praise  on  him  in  the  edi- 
torial comments  :  which  undoubtedly  was  one  of  the  gratefulest 
literary  baptisms,  by  fire  or  by  water,  that  could  befall  a  soul 
like  Sterling's.  He  bore  it  very  gently,  being  indeed  past  the 
age  to  have  his  head  turned  by  anybody's  praises  ;  nor  do  I 
think  the  exaggeration  that  was  in  these  eulogies  did  him  any 
ill  whatever  ;  while  surely  their  generous  encouragement  did 
him  much  good,  in  his  solitary  struggle  towards  new  activity 
under  such  impediments  as  his.  Laudari  a  laudato ;  to  be 
called  noble  by  one  whom  you  and  the  world  recognise  as  noble : 
this  great  satisfaction,  never  perhaps  in  such  a  degree  before  or 
after,  had  now  been  vouchsafed  to  Sterling  ;  and  was,  as  I  com- 
pute, an  important  fact  for  him.  He  proceeded  on  his  pil- 
grimage with  new  energy,  and  felt  more  and  more  as  if  authen- 
tically consecrated  to  the  same. 

The  Onyx  Ring,  a  curious  Tale,  with  wild  improbable  basis, 
but  with  a  noble  glow  of  colouring  and  with  other  high  merits 
in  it,  a  Tale  still  worth  reading,  in  which,  among  the  imaginary 
characters,  various  friends  of  Sterling's  are  shadowed  forth,  not 
always  in  the  truest  manner,  came  out  in  Blackwood  in  the 
winter  of  this  year.  Surely  a  very  high  talent  for  painting,  both 
of  scenery  and  persons,  is  visible  in  this  Fiction  ;  the  promise 
of  a  Novel  such  as  we  have  few.  But  there  wants  maturing, 
wants  purifying  of  clear  from  unclear  ; — properly  there  want 
patience  and  steady  depth.  The  basis,  as  we  said,  is  wild  and 
loose  ;  and  in  the  details,  lucent  often  with  fine  colour,  and  dipt 


TO  MADEIRA.  135 

in  beautiful  sunshine,  there  are  several  things  misseen,  untrue, 
which  is  the  worst  species  of  mispainting.  Witness,  as  Sterling 
himself  would  have  by  and  by  admitted,  the  '  empty  clockcase' 
(so  we  called  it)  which  he  has  labelled  Goethe, — which  puts  all 
other  untruths  in  the  Piece  to  silence. 

One  of  the  great  alleviations  of  his  exile  at  Madeira  he  has 
already  celebrated  to  us  :  the  pleasant  circle  of  society  he  fell 
into  there.  Great  luck,  thinks  Sterling  in  this  voyage  ;  as  in- 
deed there  was  :  but  he  himself,  moreover,  was  readier  than 
most  men  to  fall  into  pleasant  circles  everywhere,  being  singu- 
larly prompt  to  make  the  most  of  any  circle.  Some  of  his 
Madeira  acquaintanceships  were  really  good  ;  and  one  of  them, 
if  not  more,  ripened  into  comradeship  and  friendship  for  him. 
He  says,  as  we  saw,  '  The  chances  are,  Calvert  and  I  will  come 
home  together.' 

Among  the  English  in  pursuit  of  health,  or  in  Might  from 
fatal  disease,  that  winter,  was  this  Dr.  Calvert  ;  an  excellent 
ingenious  cheery  Cumberland  gentleman,  about  Sterling's  age, 
and  in  a  deeper  stage  of  ailment,  this  not  being  his  first  visit 
to  Madeira  :  he,  warmly  joining  himself  to  Sterling,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  warmly  received  by  him  ;  so  that  there  soon  grew  a 
close  and  free  intimacy  between  them  ;  which  for  the  next  three 
years,  till  poor  Calvert  ended  his  course,  was  a  leading  element 
in  the  history  of  both.  Companionship  in  incurable  malady,  a 
touching  bond  of  union,  was  by  no  means  purely  or  chiefly  a 
companionship  in  misery  in  their  case.  The  sunniest  inextin- 
guishable cheerfulness  shone,  through  all  manner  of  clouds,  in 
both.  Calvert  had  been  travelling  physician  in  some  family  of 
rank,  who  had  rewarded  him  with  a  pension,  shielding  his  own 
ill-health  from  one  sad  evil.  Being  hopelessly  gone  in  pul- 
monary disorder,  he  now  moved  about  among  friendly  climates 
and  places,  seeking  what  alleviation  there  might  be  ;  often  spend- 
ing his  summers  in  the  house  of  a  sister  in  the  environs  of  Lon- 
don ;  an  insatiable  rider  on  his  little  brown  pony  ;  always, 
wherever  you  might  meet  him,  one  of  the  cheeriest  of  men.  He 
had  plenty  of  speculation  too,  clear  glances  of  all  kinds  into  reli- 
gious, social,  moral  concerns  ;  and  pleasantly  incited  Sterling's 
outpourings  on  such  subjects.  He  could  report  of  fashionable 
persons  and  manners,  in  a  fine  human  Cumberland  manner ; 


136  JOHN  STERLING. 

loved  art,  a  great  collector  of  drawings  ;  he  had  endless  help 
and  ingenuity  ;  and  was,  in  short,  every  way  a  very  human, 
lovable,  good  and  nimble  man, — the  laughing  blue  eyes  of  him, 
the  clear  cheery  soul  of  him,  still  redolent  of  the  fresh  Northern 
breezes  and  transparent  Mountain  streams.  With  this  Calvert, 
Sterling  formed  a  natural  intimacy  ;  and  they  were  to  each 
other  a  great  possession,  mutually  enlivening  many  a  dark  day 
during  the  next  three  years.  They  did  come  home  together  this 
spring  ;  and  subsequently  made  several  of  these  health-journeys 
in  partnership. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LITERATURE  :   THE  STERLING  CLUB. 

IN  spite  of  these  wanderings,  Sterling's  course  in  life,  so  far 
as  his  poor  life  could  have  any  course  or  aim  beyond  that  of 
screening  itself  from  swift  death,  was  getting  more  and  more 
clear  to  him  ;  and  he  pursued  it  diligently,  in  the  only  way  per- 
mitted him,  by  hasty  snatches,  in  the  intervals  of  continual 
fluctuation,  change  of  place  and  other  interruption. 

Such,  once  for  all,  were  the  conditions  appointed  him.  And 
it  must  be  owned  he  had,  with  a  most  kindly  temper,  adjusted 
himself  to  these  ;  nay  you  would  have  said,  he  loved  them  ;  it 
was  almost  as  if  he  would  have  chosen  them  as  the  suitablest. 
Such  an  adaptation  was  there  in  him  of  volition  to  necessity  :— 
for  indeed  they  both,  if  well  seen  into,  proceeded  from  one 
source.  Sterling's  bodily  disease  was  the  expression,  under 
physical  conditions,  of  the  too  vehement  life  which,  under  the 
moral,  the  intellectual  and  other  aspects,  incessantly  struggled 
within  him.  Too  vehement ; — which  would  have  required  a 
frame  of  oak  and  iron  to  contain  it  :  in  a  thin  though  most 
wiry  body  of  flesh  and  bone,  it  incessantly  'wore  holes,'  and  so 
found  outlet  for  itself.  He  could  take  no  rest,  he  had  never 
learned  that  art ;  he  was,  as  we  often  reproached  him,  fatally 
incapable  of  sitting  still.  Rapidity,  as  of  pulsing  auroras,  as  of 
dancing  lightnings  :  rapidity  in  all  forms  characterised  him. 
This,  which  was  his  bane,  in  many  senses,  being  the  real  origin 
of  his  disorder,  and  of  such  continual  necessity  to  move  and 
change, — was  also  his  antidote,  so  far  as  antidote  there  might 


THE  STERLING  CLUB.  137 

be  ;  enabling  him  to  love  change,  and  to  snatch,  as  few  others 
could  have  done,  from  the  waste  chaotic  years,  all  tumbled  into 
ruin  by  incessant  change,  what  hours  and  minutes  of  available 
turned  up.  He  had  an  incredible  facility  of  labour.  He  flashed 
with  most  piercing  glance  into  a  subject  ;  gathered  it  up  into 
organic  utterability,  with  truly  wonderful  dispatch,  considering 
the  success  and  truth  attained  ;  and  threw  it  on  paper  with  a 
swift  felicity,  ingenuity,  brilliancy  and  general  excellence,  of 
which,  under  such  conditions  of  swiftness,  I  have  never  seen  a 
parallel.  Essentially  an  improviser  genius  ;  as  his  Father  too 
was,  and  of  admirable  completeness  he  too,  though  under  a  very 
different  form. 

If  Sterling  has  done  little  in  Literature,  we  may  ask,  What 
other  man  than  he,  in  such  circumstances,  could  have  done  any- 
thing ?  In  virtue  of  these  rapid  faculties,  which  otherwise  cost 
him  so  dear,  he  has  built  together,  out  of  those  wavering  boiling 
quicksands  of  his  few  later  years,  a  result  which  may  justly  sur- 
prise us.  There  is  actually  some  result  in  those  poor  Two 
Volumes  gathered  from  him,  such  as  they  are  ;  he  that  reads 
there  will  not  wholly  lose  his  time,  nor  rise  with  a  malison  in- 
stead of  a  blessing  on  the  writer.  Here  actually  is  a  real  seer- 
glance,  of  some  compass,  into  the  world  of  our  day  ;  blessed 
glance,  once  more,  of  an  eye  that  is  human  ;  truer  than  one  of 
a  thousand,  and  beautifully  capable  of  making  others  see  with  it. 
I  have  known  considerable  temporary  reputations  gained,  con- 
siderable piles  of  temporary  guineas,  with  loud  reviewing  and 
the  like  to  match,  on  a  far  less  basis  than  lies  in  those  two 
volumes.  Those  also,  I  expect,  will  be  held  in  memory  by  the 
world,  one  way  or  other,  till  the  world  has  extracted  all  its 
benefit  from  them.  Graceful,  ingenious  and  illuminative  read- 
ing, of  their  sort,  for  all  manner  of  inquiring  souls.  A  little 
verdant  flowery  island  of  poetic  intellect,  of  melodious  human 
verity  ;  sunlit  island  founded  on  the  rocks  ; — which  the  enor- 
mous circumambient  continents  of  mown  reedgrass  and  float- 
ing lumber,  with  their  mountain-ranges  of  ejected  stable-litter 
however  alpine,  cannot  by  any  means  or  chance  submerge  : 
nay,  I  expect,  they  will  not  even  quite  hide  it,  this  modest  little 
island,  from  the  well-discerning  ;  but  will  float  past  it  towards 
the  place  appointed  for  them,  and  leave  said  island  standing. 
Allah  kereem,  say  the  Arabs  !  And  of  the  English  also  some 


138  JOHN  STERLING. 

still  know  that  there  is  a  difference  in  the  material  of  moun- 
tains ! — 

As  it  is  this  last  little  result,  the  amount  of  his  poor  and 
ever-interrupted  literary  labour,  that  henceforth  forms  the  essen- 
tial history  of  Sterling,  we  need  not  dwell  at  too  much  length 
on  the  foreign  journeys,  disanchorings,  and  nomadic  vicissitudes 
of  household,  which  occupy  his  few  remaining  years,  and  which 
are  only  the  disastrous  and  accidental  arena  of  this.  He  had 
now,  excluding  his  early  and  more  deliberate  residence  in  the 
West  Indies,  made  two  flights  abroad,  once  with  his  family, 
once  without,  in  search  of  health.  He  had  two  more,  in  rapid 
succession,  to  make,  and  many  more  to  meditate ;  and  in  the 
whole  from  Bayswater  to  the  end,  his  family  made  no  fewer 
than  five  complete  changes  of  abode,  for  his  sake.  But  these 
cannot  be  accepted  as  in  any  sense  epochs  in  his  life  :  the  one 
last  epoch  of  his  life  was  that  of  his  internal  change  towards 
Literature  as  his  work  in  the  world  ;  and  we  need  not  linger 
much  on  these,  which  arc  the  mere  outer  accidents  of  that,  and 
had  no  distinguished  influence  in  modifying  that. 

Friends  still  hoped  the  unrest  of  that  brilliant  too-rapid  soul 
would  abate  with  years.  Nay  the  doctors  sometimes  promised, 
on  the  physical  side,  a  like  result  ;  prophesying  that,  at  forty- 
five  or  some  mature  age,  the  stress  of  disease  might  quit  the 
lungs,  and  direct  itself  to  other  quarters  of  the  system.  But  no 
such  result  was  appointed  for  us  ;  neither  forty-five  itself,  nor 
the  ameliorations  promised  then,  were  ever  to  be  reached.  Four 
voyages  abroad,  three  of  them  without  his  family,  in  flight  from 
death  ;  and  at  home,  for  a  like  reason,  five  complete  shiftings 
of  abode  :  in  such  wandering  manner,  and  not  otherwise,  had 
Sterling  to  continue  his  pilgrimage  till  it  ended. 

Once  more  I  must  say,  his  cheerfulness  throughout  was 
wonderful.  A  certain  grimmer  shade,  coming  gradually  over 
him,  might  perhaps  be  noticed  in  the  concluding  years  ;  not 
impatience  properly,  yet  the  consciousness  how  much  he  needed 
patience ;  something  more  caustic  in  his  tone  of  wit,  more 
trenchant  and  indignant  occasionally  in  his  tone  of  speech  :  but 
at  no  moment  was  his  activity  bewildered  or  abated,  nor  did  his 
composure  ever  give  way.  No  ;  both  his  activity  and  his  com- 
posure he  bore  with  him,  through  all  weathers,  to  the  final  close ; 


THE  STERLING  CLUB.  139 

and  on  the  whole,  right  manfully  he  walked  his  wild  stern  way 
towards  the  goal,  and  like  a  Roman  wrapped  his  mantle  round 
him  when  he  fell. — Let  us  glance,  with  brevity,  at  what  he  saw 
and  suffered  in  his  remaining  pilgrimings  and  changings  ;  and 
count-up  what  fractions  of  spiritual  fruit  he  realised  to  us  from 
them. 

Calvert  and  he  returned  from  Madeira  in  spring  1838. 
Mrs.  Sterling  and  the  family  had  lived  in  Knightsbridge  with 
his  Father's  people  through  winter  :  they  now  changed  to  Black- 
heath,  or  ultimately  Hastings,  and  he  with  them,  coming  up  to 
London  pretty  often  ;  uncertain  what  was  to  be  done  for  next 
winter.  Literature  went  on  briskly  here  :  Blackwood  had  from 
him,  besides  the  Onyx  Ring  which  soon  came  out  with  due 
honour,  assiduous  almost  monthly  contributions  in  prose  and 
verse.  The  series  called  Hymns  of  a  Hermit  was  now  going  on ; 
eloquent  melodies,  tainted  to  me  with  something  of  the  same 
disease  as  the  Sexton's  Daughter,  though  perhaps  in  a  less  de- 
gree, considering  that  the  strain  was  in  a  so  much  higher  pitch. 
Still  better,  in  clear  eloquent  prose,  the  series  of  detached 
thoughts,  entitled  Crystals  from  a  Cavern  j  of  which  the  set  of 
fragments,  generally  a  little  larger  in  compass,  called  Thoughts 
and  Images,  and  again  those  called  Sayings  and  Essaying*,**- 
are  properly  continuations.  Add  to  which,  his  friend  John  Mill 
had  now  charge  of  a  Review,  The  London  and  Westminster  its 
name  ;  wherein  Sterling's  assistance,  ardently  desired,  was  freely 
afforded,  with  satisfaction  to  both  parties,  in  this  and  the  fol- 
lowing years.  An  Essay  on  Montaigne,  with  the  notes  and  re- 
miniscences already  spoken  of,  was  Sterling's  first  contribution 
here  ;  then  one  on  Simonides :-  both  of  the  present  season. 

On  these  and  other  businesses,  slight  or  important,  he  was 
often  running  up  to  London  ;  and  gave  us  almost  the  feeling  of 
his  being  resident  among  us.  In  order  to  meet  the  most  or  a 
good  many  of  his  friends  at  once  on  such  occasions,  he  now 
furthermore  contrived  the  scheme  of  a  little  Club,  where  monthly 
over  a  frugal  dinner  some  reunion  might  take  place  ;  that  is, 
where  friends  of  his,  and  withal  such  friends  of  theirs  as  suited, 
— and  in  fine,  where  a  small  select  company  definable  as  per- 
sons to  whom  it  was  pleasant  to  talk  together, — might  have  a 

1  Hare,  ii.  95-167.  -  Ib.  i.  129,  188. 


140  JOHN  STERLING. 

little  opportunity  of  talking.  The  scheme  was  approved  by  the 
persons  concerned  :  I  have  a  copy  of  the  Original  Regulations, 
probably  drawn-up  by  Sterling,  a  very  solid  lucid  piece  of  eco- 
nomics ;  and  the  List  of  the  proposed  Members,  signed  'James 
Spedding,  Secretary,'  and  dated  '8th  August  1838.'-"  The  Club 
grew  ;  was  at  first  called  the  Anonymous  Club  ;  then,  after  some 
months  of  success,  in  compliment  to  the  founder  who  had  now 
left  us  again,  the  Sterling  Club ; — under  which  latter  name,  it 
once  lately,  for  a  time,  owing  to  the  Religious  Newspapers,  be- 
came rather  famous  in  the  world  !  In  which  strange  circum- 
stances the  name  was  again  altered,  to  suit  weak  brethren  ;  and 
the  Club  still  subsists,  in  a  sufficiently  flourishing  though  hap- 
pily once  more  a  private  condition.  That  is  the  origin  and 
genesis  of  poor  Sterling's  Club  ;  which,  having  honestly  paid 
the  shot  for  itself  at  Will's  Coffeehouse  or  elsewhere,  rashly 
fancied  its  bits  of  affairs  were  quite  settled  ;  and  once  little 
thought  of  getting  into  Books  of  History  with  them  ! — 

3  Here  in  a  Note  they  are,  if  they  can  be  important  to  anybody.  The 
marks  of  interrogation,  attached  to  some  Names  as  not  yet  consulted  or 
otherwise  questionable,  are  in  the  Secretary's  hand : 

J.  D.  Acland,  Esq.  H.  Maiden,  Esq. 

Hon.  W.  B.  Baring.  J.  S.  Mill,  Esq. 

Rev.  J.  W.  Blakesley.  R.  M.  Milnes,  Esq. 

W.  Boxall,  Esq.  R.  Monteith,  Esq. 

T.  Carlyle,  Esq.  S.  A.  O'Brien,  Esq. 

Hon.  R.  Cavendish  (?)  Sir  F.  Palgrave  (?) 

H.  N.  Coleridge,  Esq.  (?)  W.  F.  Pollok,  Esq. 

J.  W.  Colville,  Esq.  Philip  Pusey,  Esq. 

Allan  Cunningham,  Esq.  (?)  A.  Rio,  Esq. 

Rev.  H.  Donn.  C.  Romilly,  Esq. 

F.  H.  Doyle,  Esq.  James  Spedding,  Esq. 

C.  L.  Eastlake,  Esq.  Rev.  John  Sterling. 
Alex.  Ellice,  Esq.  Alfred  Tennyson,  Esq. 
J.  F.  Elliott,  Esq.  Rev.  Connop  Thirlwall. 
Copley  Fielding,  Esq.  Rev.  W.  Hepworth  Thompson. 
Rev.  J.  C.  Hare.  Edward  Twisleton,  Esq. 

Sir  Edmund  Head  (?)  G.  S.  Venables,  Esq. 

D.  D.  Heath,  Esq.  Samuel  Wood,  Esq. 

G.  C.  Lewis,  Esq.  Rev.  T.  Worsley. 
H.  L.  Lushington,  Esq. 

The  Lord  Lyttleton.  James  Spedding,  Secretary. 

C.  Macarthy,  Esq.  8th  August  1838. 


ITALY.  141 

But  now,  Autumn  approaching,  Sterling  had  to  quit  Clubs, 
for  matters  of  sadder  consideration.  A  new  removal,  what  we 
call  'his  third  peregrinity,'  had  to  be  decided  on  ;  and  it  was 
resolved  that  Rome  should  be  the  goal  of  it,  the  journey  to  be 
done  in  company  with  Calvert,  whom  also  the  Italian  climate 
might  be  made  to  serve  instead  of  Madeira.  One  of  the  liveliest 
recollections  I  have,  connected  with  the  Anonymous  Club,  is 
that  of  once  escorting  Sterling,  after  a  certain  meeting  there, 
which  I  had  seen  only  towards  the  end,  and  now  remember 
nothing  of, — except  that,  on  breaking-up,  he  proved  to  be  en- 
cumbered with  a  carpet-bag,  and  could  not  at  once  find  a  cab 
for  Knightsbriclge.  Some  small  bantering  hereupon,  during  the 
instants  of  embargo.  But  we  carried  his  carpet-bag,  slinging  it 
on  my  stick,  two  or  three  of  us  alternately,  through  dusty  vacant 
streets,  under  the  gaslights  and  the  stars,  towards  the  surest 
cab-stand  ;  still  jesting,  or  pretending  to  jest,  he  and  we,  not  in 
the  mirthfulest  manner;  and  had  (I  suppose)  our  own  feelings 
about  the  poor  Pilgrim,  who  was  to  go  on  the  morrow,  and  had 
hurried  to  meet  us  in  this  way,  as  the  last  thing  before  leaving 
England. 

CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  journey  to  Italy  was  undertaken  by  advice  of  Sir 
James  Clark,  reckoned  the  chief  authority  in  pulmonary  thera- 
peutics ;  who  prophesied  important  improvements  from  it,  and 
perhaps  even  the  possibility  henceforth  of  living  all  the  year  in 
some  English  honie.  Mrs.  Sterling  and  the  children  continued 
in  a  house  avowedly  temporary,  a  furnished  house  at  Hastings, 
through  the  winter.  The  two  friends  had  set  off  for  Belgium, 
while  the  due  warmth  was  still  in  the  air.  They  traversed  Bel- 
gium, looking  well  at  pictures  and  such  objects  ;  ascended  the 
Rhine  ;  rapidly  traversed  Switzerland  and  the  Alps  ;  issuing 
upon  Italy  and  Milan,  with  immense  appetite  for  pictures,  and 
time  still  to  gratify  themselves  in  that  pursuit,  and  be  deliberate 
in  their  approach  to  Rome.  We  will  take  this  free-flowing  sketch 
of  their  passage  over  the  Alps  ;  written  amid  '  the  rocks  of 
Arena,' — Santo  Borromeo's  country,  and  poor  little  Mignon's  ! 


142  JOHN  STERLING. 

The  '  elder  Perdonnets'  are  opulent  Lausanne  people,  to  whose 
late  son  Sterling  had  been  very  kind  in  Madeira  the  year  be- 
fore : 

'  To  Mrs.  Sterling,  Kniglitsbridge,  London. 

'Arena  on  the  Lago  Maggiore,  8th  Oct.  1838. 

'  MY  DEAR  MOTHER, — I  bring  down  the  story  of  my  pro- 
'  ceedings  to  the  present  time  since  the  2Qth  of  September.  I 
'  think  it  must  have  been  after  that  day  that  I  was  at  a  great 
'  breakfast  at  the  elder  Perdonnets',  with  whom  I  had  declined 
'  to  dine,  not  choosing  to  go  out  at  night.  *  *  *  I  was  taken 
'  by  my  hostess  to  see  several  pretty  pleasure-grounds  and  points 
'  of  view  in  the  neighbourhood  ;  and  latterly  Calvertwas  better, 
'  and  able  to  go  with  us.  He  was  in  force  again,  and  our  pass- 
'  ports  were  all  settled  so  as  to  enable  us  to  start  on  the  morn- 
'  ing  of  the  2d,  after  taking  leave  of  our  kind  entertainer  with 
'  thanks  for  her  infinite  kindness. 

1  We  reached  St.  Maurice  early  that  evening  ;  having  had 
'  the  Dent  du  Midi  close  to  us  for  several  hours;  glittering  like 
'  the  top  of  a  silver  teapot,  far  up  in  the  sky.  Our  course  lay 
'  along  the  Valley  of  the  Rhone  ;  which  is  considered  one  of  the 
'  least  beautiful  parts  of  Switzerland,  and  perhaps  for  this  reason 
'  pleased  us,  as  we  had  not  been  prepared  to  expect  much.  We 
'  saw,  before  reaching  the  foot  of  the  Alpine  pass  at  Brieg,  two 
'  rather  celebrated  Waterfalls  ;  the  one  the  Pissevache,  which 
'  has  no  more  beauty  than  any  waterfall  one  hundred  or  two 
'  hundred  feet  high  must  necessarily  have  :  the  other,  near 
'  Tourtemagne,  is  much  more  pleasing,  having  foliage  round  it, 
'  and  being  in  a  secluded  dell.  If  you  buy  a  Swiss  Waterfall, 
'  choose  this  one. 

'  Our  second  day  took  us  through  Martigny  to  Sion,  cele- 
'  brated  for  its  picturesque  towers  upon  detached  hills,  for  its 
'  strong  Romanism  and  its  population  of  cretins,  —  that  is, 
'  maifcied  idiots  having  the  goitre.  It  looked  to  us  a  more 
'  thriving  place  than  we  expected.  They  are  building  a  great 
'  deal ;  among  other  things,  a  new  Bishop's  Palace  and  a  new 
'  Nunnery, — to  inhabit  either  of  which  ex  officio  I  feel  myself 
'  very  unsuitable.  From  Sion  we  came  to  Brieg  ;  a  little  village 
'  in  a  nook,  close  under  an  enormous  mountain  and  glacier, 
'  where  it  lies  like  a  molehill,  or  something  smaller,  at  the  foot 


ITALY.  143 

'  of  a  haystack.  Here  also  we  slept ;  and  the  next  day  our 
'  voiturier,  who  had  brought  us  from  Lausanne,  started  with  us 
'  up  the  Simplon  Pass  ;  helped  on  by  two  extra  horses. 

'  The  beginning  of  the  road  was  rather  cheerful  ;  having  a 
'  good  deal  of  green  pasturage,  and  some  mountain  villages  ; 
'  but  it  soon  becomes  dreary  and  savage  in  aspect,  and  but  for 
1  our  bright  sky  and  warm  air,  would  have  been  truly  dismal. 
'  However,  we  gained  gradually  a  distinct  and  near  view  of 
'  several  large  glaciers ;  and  reached  at  last  the  high  and  melan- 
'  choly  valleys  of  the  Upper  Alps ;  where  even  the  pines  become 
'  scanty,  and  no  sound  is  heard  but  the  wheels  of  one's  carriage, 
'  except  when  there  happens  to  be  a  storm  or  an  avalanche, 
'  neither  of  which  entertained  us.  There  is,  here  and  there,  a 
'  small  stream  of  water  pouring  from  the  snow ;  but  this  is  rather 
'  a  monotonous  accompaniment  to  the  general  desolation  than 
'  an  interruption  of  it.  The  road  itself  is  certainly  very  good, 
'  and  impresses  one  with  a  strong  notion  of  human  power.  But 
'  the  common  descriptions  are  much  exaggerated ;  and  many  of 
'  what  the  Guide-Books  call  "galleries"  are  merely  parts  of  the 
'  road  supported  by  a  wall  built  against  the  rock,  and  have  no- 
'  thing  like  a  roof  above  them.  The  "stupendous  bridges,"  as 
'  they  are  called,  might  be  packed,  a  dozen  together,  into  one 
'  arch  of  London  Bridge  ;  and  they  are  seldom  even  very  strik- 
'  ing  from  the  depth  below.  The  roadway  is  excellent,  and 
'  kept  in  the  best  order.  On  the  whole,  I  am  very  glad  to  have 
'  travelled  the  most  famous  road  in  Europe,  and  to  have  had 
'  delightful  weather  for  doing  so,  as  indeed  we  have  had  ever 
'  since  we  left  Lausanne.  The  Italian  descent  is  greatly  more 
'  remarkable  than  the  other  side. 

'  We  slept  near  the  top,  at  the  Village  of  Simplon,  in  a  very 
1  fair  and  well-warmed  inn,  close  to  a  mountain  stream,  which 
'  is  one  of  the  great  ornaments  of  this  side  of  the  road.  We 
'  have  here  passed  into  a  region  of  granite,  from  that  of  lime- 
'  stone,  and  what  is  called  gneiss.  The  valleys  are  sharper  and 
'  closer, — like  cracks  in  a  hard  and  solid  mass  ; — and  there  is 
'  much  more  of  the  startling  contrast  of  light  and  shade,  as  well 
'  as  more  angular  boldness  of  outline  ;  to  all  which  the  more 
'  abundant  waters  add  a  fresh  and  vivacious  interest.  Looking 
'  back  through  one  of  these  abysmal  gorges,  one  sees  two  tor- 
'  rents  dashing  together,  the  precipice  and  ridge  on  one  side, 


144  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  pitch-black  with  shade ;  and  that  on  the  other  all  flaming  gold ; 
'  while  behind  rises,  in  a  huge  cone,  one  of  the  glacier  summits 
'  of  the  chain.  The  stream  at  one's  feet  rushes  at  a  leap  some 
'  two  hundred  feet  down,  and  is  bordered  with  pines  and  beeches, 
'  struggling  through  a  ruined  world  of  clefts  and  boulders.  I 
'  never  saw  anything  so  much  resembling  some  of  the  Circles 
'  described  by  Dante.  From  Simplon  we  made  for  Duomo 
'  d'Ossola;  having  broken  out,  as  through  the  mouth  of  a  mine, 
'  into  green  and  fertile  valleys  full  of  vines  and  chestnuts,  and 
'  white  villages, — in  short,  into  sunshine  and  Italy. 

'  At  this  place  we  dismissed  our  Swiss  voiturier,  and  took 
'  an  Italian  one  ;  who  conveyed  us  to  Omegna  on  the  Lake  of 
'  Orta  ;  a  place  little  visited  by  English  travellers,  but  which 
'  fully  repaid  us  the  trouble  of  going  there.  We  .were  lodged 
'  in  a  simple  and  even  rude  Italian  inn  ;  where  they  cannot 
'  speak  a  word  of  French ;  where  we  occupied  a  barn-like  room, 
'  with  a  huge  chimney  fit  to  lodge  a. hundred  ghosts,  whom  we 
'  expelled  by  dint  of  a  hot  woodfire.  There  were  two  beds,  and 
'  as  it  happened  good  ones,  in  this  strange  old  apartment ;  which 
'  was  adorned  by  pictures  of  Architecture,  and  by  Heads  of 
'  Saints,  better  than  many  at  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition, 
'  and  which  one  paid  nothing  for  looking  at.  The  thorough 
'  Italian  character  of  the  whole  scene  amused  us,  much  more 
'  than  Meurice's  at  Paris  would  have  done ;  for  we  had  voluble, 
'  commonplace  good  humour,  with  the  aspect  and  accessories 
'  of  a  den  of  banditti. 

'  Today  we  have  seen  the  Lake  of  Orta,  have  walked  for 
'  some  miles  among  its  vineyards  and  chestnuts  ;  and  thence 
'  have  come,  by  Baveno,  to  this  place  ; — having  seen  by  the 
'  way,  I  believe,  the  most  beautiful  part  of  the  Lago  Maggiore, 
'  and  certainly  the  most  cheerful,  complete  and  extended  ex- 
'  ample  of  fine  scenery  I  have  ever  fallen-in  with.  Here  we  are, 
'  much  to  my  wonder, — for  it  seems  too  good  to  be  true, — fairly 
'  in  Italy  ;  and  as  yet  my  journey  has  been  a  pleasanter  and 
'  more  instructive,  and  in  point  of  health  a  more  successful  one, 
'  than  I  at  all  imagined  possible.  Calvert  and  I  go  on  as  well 
'  as  can  be.  I  let  him  have  his  way  about  natural  science,  and 
'  he  only  laughs  benignly  when  he  thinks  me  absurd  in  my 
'  moral  speculations.  My  only  regrets  are  caused  by  my  separa- 
'  tion  from  my  family  and  friends,  and  by  the  hurry  I  have  been 


ITALY.  145 

1  living  in,  which  has  prevented  me  doing  any  work, — and  com- 
'  polled  me  to  write  to  you  at  a  good  deal  faster  rate  than  the 
'  vaporc  moves  on  the  Lago  Maggiore.  It  will  take  me  to- 
'  morrow  to  Scsto  Calende,  whence  we  go  to  Varesc.  We  shall 
'  not  be  at  Milan  for  some  days.  Write  thither,  if  you  arc  kind 
1  enough  to  write  at  all,  till  I  give  you  another  address.  Love 
'  to  my  Father, — Your  affectionate  son,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

Omitting  Milan,  Florence  nearly  all,  and  much  about  'Art,' 
Michael  Angelo,  and  other  aerial  matters,  here  are  some  select 
terrestrial  glimpses,  the  fittest  I  can  find,  of  his  progress  to- 
wards Rome  : 

Lucca,  Nov.  27 tli,  1838  (To  his  Mother}. — '  I  had  dreams, 
'  like  other  people,  before  I  came  here,  of  what  the  Lombard 
'  Lakes  must  be  ;  and  the  week  I  spent  among  them  has  left 
'  me  an  image,  not  only  more  distinct,  but  far  more  warm, 
'  shining  and  various,  and  more  deeply  attractive  in  innumer- 
'  able  respects,  than  all  I  had  before  conceived  of  them.  And 
'  so  also  it  has  been  with  Florence;  where  I  spent  three  weeks: 
'  enough  for  the  first  hazy  radiant  dawn  of  sympathy  to  pass 
'  away  ;  yet  constantly  adding  an  increase  of  knowledge  and  of 
'  love,  while  I  examined,  and  tried  to  understand,  the  wonderful 
'  minds  that  have  left  behind  them  there  such  abundant  traces 
'  of  their  presence.' — '  On  Sunday,  the  day  before  I  left  Flor- 
'  cnce,  I  went  to  the  highest  part  of  the  Grand  Duke's  Garden 
'  of  Boboli,  which  commands  a  view  of  most  of  the  City,  and  of 
'  the  vale  of  the  Arno  to  the  westward;  where,  as  we  had  been 
'  visited  by  several  rainy  days,  and  now  at  last  ha'd  a  very  fine 
'  one,  the  whole  prospect  was  in  its  highest  beauty.  The  mass 
'  of  buildings,  chiefly  on  the  other  side  of  the  River,  is  sufficient 
'  to  fill  the  eye,  without  perplexing  the  mind  by  vastness  like 
'  that  of  London ;  and  its  name  and  history,  its  outline  and  large 
'  and  picturesque  buildings,  give  it  grandeur  of  a  higher  order 
'  than  that  of  mere  multitudinous  extent.  The  Hills  that  border 
'  the  Valley  of  the  Arno  arc  also  very  pleasing  and  striking  to 
'  look  upon  ;  and  the  view  of  the  rich  Plain,  glimmering  away 
'  into  blue  distance,  covered  with  an  endless  web  of  villages  and 
'  country-houses,  is  one  of  the  most  delightful  images  of  human 
'  well-being  I  have  ever  seen.' — 

'  Very  shortly  before  leaving  Florence,  I  went  through  the 

L 


146  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  house  of  Michael  Angelo;  which  is  still  possessed  by  persons 
'  of  the  same  family,  descendants,  I  believe,  of  his  Nephew. 
'  There  is  in  it  his  "first  work  in  marble,"  as  it  is  called ;  and 
'  a  few  drawings, — all  with  the  stamp  of  his  enginery  upon  them, 
'  which  was  more  powerful  than  all  the  steam  in  London.' — 
'  On  the  whole,  though  I  have  done  no  work  in  Florence  that 
'  can  be  of  any  use  or  pleasure  to  others,  except  my  Letters  to 
'  my  Wife, — I  leave  it  with  the  certainty  of  much  valuable  know- 
'  ledge  gained  there,  and  with  a  most  pleasant  remembrance  of 
'  the  busy  and  thoughtful  days  I  owe  to  it. 

'We  left  Florence  before  seven  yesterday  morning,'  26th 
November,  '  for  this  place  ;  travelling  on  the  northern  side  of 
'  the  Arno,  by  Prato,  Pistoia,  Pescia.  We  tried  to  see  some 
'  old  frescoes  in  a  Church  at  Prato  ;  but  found  the  Priests  all 
'  about,  saying  mass ;  and  of  course  did  not  venture  to  put  our 
'  hands  into  a  hive  where  the  bees  were  buzzing  and  on  the 
'  wing.  Pistoia  we  only  coasted.  A  little  on  one  side  of  it, 
'  there  is  a  Hill,  the  first  on  the  road  from  Florence ;  which  we 
'  walked  up,  and  had  a  very  lively  and  brilliant  prospect  over 
'  the  road  we  had  just  travelled,  and  the  town  of  Pistoia. 
'  Thence  to  this  place  the  whole  land  is  beautiful,  and  in  the 
'  highest  degree  prosperous, — in  short,  to  speak  metaphorically, 
'  all  dotted  with  Leghorn  bonnets,  and  streaming  with  olive-oil. 
'  The  girls  here  are  said  to  employ  themselves  chiefly  in  platting 
'  straw,  which  is  a  profitable  employment;  and  the  slightness 
'  and  quiet  of  the  work  are  said  to  be  much  more  favourable  to 
'  beauty  tha»  the  coarser  kinds  of  labour  performed  by  the  coun- 
'  try-women  elsewhere.  Certain  it  is  that  I  saw  more  pretty  wo- 
'  men  in  Pescia,  in  the  hour  I  spent  there,  than  I  ever  before  met 
'  with  among  the  same  numbers  of  the  "phare  sect."  Where- 
'  fore,  as  a  memorial  of  them,  I  bought  there  several  Legends 
'  of  Female  Saints  and  Martyrs,  and  of  other  Ladies  quite  the 
'  reverse,  and  held-up  as  warnings  ;  all  of  which  are  written  in 
'  ottava  rima,  and  sold  for  three-halfpence  apiece.  But  un- 
'  happily  I  have  not  yet  had  time  to  read  them.  This  Town 
'  has  30,000  inhabitants,  and  is  surrounded  by  Walls,  laid-out 
'  as  walks,  and  evidently  not  at  present  intended  to  be  besieged, 
'  — for  which  reason,  this  morning,  I  merely  walked  on  them 
'  round  the  Town,  and  did  not  besiege  them." 


ITALY.  147 

'  The  Cathedral'  of  Lucca  '  contains  some  Relics  ;  which 
'  have  undoubtedly  worked  miracles  on  the  imagination  of  the 
'  people  hereabouts.  The  Grandfather  of  all  Relics  (as  the 
'  Arabs  would  say)  in  the  place  is  the  Volto  Santo,  which  is  a 
'  Face  of  the  Saviour  appertaining  to  a  wooden  Crucifix.  Now 
'  you  must  know  that,  after  the  ascension  of  Christ,  Nicodemus 
'  was  ordered  by  an  Angel  to  carve  an  image  of  him ;  and  went 
'  accordingly  with  a  hatchet,  and  cut  down  a  cedar  for  that 
'  purpose.  He  then  proceeded  to  carve  the  figure  ;  and  being 
'  tired,  fell  asleep  before  he  had  done  the  face ;  which  however, 
'  on  awaking,  he  found  completed  by  celestial  aid.  This  image 
'  was  brought  to  Lucca,  from  Leghorn,  I  think,  where  it  had 
'  arrived  in  a  ship,  "  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago,"  and  has 
'  ever  since  been  kept,  in  purple  and  fine  linen  and  gold  and 
'  diamonds,  quietly  working  miracles.  I  saw  the  gilt  Shrine  of 
'  it;  and  also  a  Hatchet  which  refused  to  cut  off  the  head  of  an 
'  innocent  man,  who  had  been  condemned  to  death,  and  who 
'  prayed  to  the  Volto  Santo.  I  suppose  it  is  by  way  of  economy 
'  (they  being  a  frugal  people)  that  the  Italians  have  their  Book 
'  of  Common  Prayer  and  their  Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments 
'  condensed  into  one." 

Pisa,  December  2(f,  1838  (To  the  same]. — '  Pisa  is  very  un- 
'  fairly  treated  in  all  the  Books  I  have  read.  It  seems  to  me  a 
'  quiet,  but  very  agreeable  place  ;  with  wide  clean  streets,  and 
'  a  look  of  stability  and  comfort  ;  and  I  admire  the  Cathedral 
'  and  its  appendages  more,  the  more  I  see  them.  The  leaning 
'  of  the  Tower  is  to  my  eye  decidedly  unpleasant  ;  but  it  is  a 
'  beautiful  building  nevertheless,  and  the  view  from  the  top  is, 
'  under  a  bright  sky,  remarkably  lively  and  satisfactory.  The 
'  Lucchese  Hills  form  a  fine  mass,  and  the  sea  must  in  clear 
'  weather  be  very  distinct.  There  was  some  haze  over  it  when 
'  I  was  up,  though  the  land  was.  all  clear.  I  could  just  see  the 
'  Leghorn  Lighthouse.  Leghorn  itself  I  shall  not  be  able  to 
'  visit.' — • 

'  The  quiet  gracefulness  of  Italian  life,  and  the  mental 
'  maturity  and  vigour  of  Germany,  have  a  great  charm  when 
'  compared  with  the  restless  whirl  of  England,  and  the  chorus 
'  of  mingled  yells  and  groans  sent-up  by  our  parties  and  sects, 
'  and  by  the  suffering  and  bewildered  crowds  of  the  labouring 


148  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  people.  Our  politics  make  my  heart  ache,  whenever  I  think 
'  of  them.  The  base  selfish  frenzies  of  factions  seem  to  me, 
'  at  this  distance,  half  diabolic  ;  and  I  am  out  of  the  way  of 
'  knowing  anything  that  may  be  quietly  adoing  to  elevate  the 
'  standard  of  wise  and  temperate  manhood  in  the  country,  and 
'  to  diffuse  the  means  of  physical  and  moral  wellbeing  among 
1  all  the  people.' — '  I  will  write  to  my  Father  as  soon  as  I  can 
'  after  reaching  the  capital  of  his  friend  the  Pope, — who,  if  he 
'  had  happened  to  be  born  an  English  gentleman,  would  no 
1  doubt  by  this  time  be  a  respectable  old-gentlemanly  gouty 
'  member  of  the  Carlton.  I  have  often  amused  myself  by  think- 
'  ing  what  a  mere  accident  it  is  that  Phillpotts  is  not  Archbishop 
'  of  Tuam,  and  M'Hale  Bishop  of  Exeter  ;  and  how  slight  a 
'  change  of  dress,  and  of  a  few  catchwords,  would  even  now 
'  enable  them  to  fill  those  respective  posts  with  all  the  propriety 
'  and  discretion  they  display  in  their  present  positions." 

At  Rome  he  found  the  Crawfords,  known  to  him  long  since ; 
raid  at  different  dates  other  English  friends  old  and  new ;  and 
was  altogether  in  the  liveliest  humour,  no  end  to  his  activities 
and  speculations.  Of  all  which,  during  the  next  four  months, 
the  Letters  now  before  me  give  abundant  record,  — far  too 
abundant  for  our  objects  here.  His  grand  pursuit,  as  natural 
at  Rome,  was  Art ;  into  which  metaphysical  domain  we  shall 
not  follow  him  ;  preferring  to  pick  out,  here  and  there,  some- 
thing of  concrete  and  human.  Of  his  interests,  researches, 
speculations  and  descriptions  on  this  subject  of  Art,  there  is 
always  rather  a  superabundance,  especially  in  the  Italian  Tour. 
Unfortunately,  in  the  hard  weather,  poor  Calvert  fell  ill ;  and 
Sterling,  along  with  his  Art-studies,  distinguished  himself  as  a 
sick-nurse  till  his  poor  comrade  got  afoot  again.  His  gene- 
ral impressions  of  the  scene  and  what  it  held  for  him  may  be 
read  in  the  following  excerpts.  The  Letters  are  all  dated  Rome, 
and  addressed  to  his  Father  or  Mother : 

December  21.57',  1838. — -'Of  Rome  itself,  as  a  whole,  there 
'  are  infinite  things  to  be  said,  well  worth  saying  ;  but  I  shall 
'  confine  myself  to  two  remarks  :  first,  that  while  the  Monu- 
'  ments  and  works  of  Art  gain  in  wondrousness  and  signifi- 
'  cancc  by  familiarity  with  them,  the  actual  life  of  Rome,  the 
'  Papacy  and  its  pride,  lose  ;  and  though  one  gets  accustomed 


ITALY.  149 

'  to  Cardinals  and  Friars  and  Swiss  Guards,  and  ragged  beg- 
'  gars  and  the  finery  of  London  and  Paris,  all  rolling  on  to- 
'  gether,  and  sees  how  it  is  that  they  subsist  in  a  sort  of  spurious 
'  unity,  one  loses  all  tendency  to  idealise  the  Metropolis  and 
'  System  of  the  Hierarchy  into  anything  higher  than  a  piece 
'  of  showy  stage-declamation,  at  bottom,  in  our  day,  thoroughly 
'  mean  and  prosaic.  My  other  remark  is,  that  Rome,  seen 
'  from  the  tower  of  the  Capitol,  from  the  Pincian  or  the  Jani- 
'  culum,  is  at  this  day  one  of  the  most  beautiful  spectacles  which 
'  eyes  ever  beheld.  The  company  of  great  domes  rising  from 
'  a  mass  of  large  and  solid  buildings,  with  a  few  stone-pines 
'  and  scattered  edifices  on  the  outskirts ;  the  broken  bare  Cam- 
'  pagna  all  around  ;  the  Alban  Hills  not  far,  and  the  purple 
'  range  of  Sabine  Mountains  in  the  distance  with  a  cope  of 
'  snow  ; — this  seen  in  the  clear  air,  and  the  whole  spiritualised 
'  by  endless  recollections,  and  a  sense  of  the  grave  and  lofty 
'  reality  of  human  existence  which  has  had  this  place  for  a 
'  main  theatre,  fills  at  once  the  eyes  and  heart  more  forcibly, 
'  and  to  me  delightfully,  than  I  can  find  words  to  say.' 

January  22d,  1839. — 'The  Modern  Rome,  Pope  and  all 
'  inclusive,  are  a  shabby  attempt  at  something  adequate  to  fill 
'  the  place  of  the  old  Commonwealth.  It  is  easy  enough  to  live 
'  among  them,  and  there  is  much  to  amuse  and  even  interest 
'  a  spectator  ;  but  the  native  existence  of  the  place  is  now  thin 
'  and  hollow,  and  there  is  a  stamp  of  littleness,  and  childish 
'  poverty  of  taste,  upon  all  the  great  Christian  buildings  I  have 
'seen  here,  —  not  excepting  St.  Peter's;  which  is  crammed 
'  with  bits  of  coloured  marble  and  gilding,  and  Gog-and-Magog 
'  colossal  statues  of  saints  (looking  prodigiously  small),  and 
'  mosaics  from  the  worst  pictures  in  Rome  ;  and  has  altoge- 
'  ther,  with  most  imposing  size  and  lavish  splendour,  a  tang  of 
'  Guildhall  finery  about  it  that  contrasts  oddly  with  the  mel- 
'  ancholy  vastness  and  simplicity  of  the  Ancient  Monuments, 
'  though  these  have  not  the  Athenian  elegance.  I  recur  per- 
'  petually  to  the  galleries  of  sculpture  in  the  Vatican,  and  to 
'  the  Frescoes  01  Raffael  and  Michael  Angelo,  of  inexhaustible 
'  beauty  and  greatness,  and  to  the  general  aspect  of  the  City 
'  and  the  Country  round  it,  as  the  most  impressive  scene  on 
'  earth.  But  the  Modern  City,  with  its  churches,  palaces,  priests 
'  and  beggars,  is  far  from  sublime.' 


150  JOHN  STERLING. 

Of  about  the  same  date,  here  is  another  paragraph  worth 
inserting  :  '  Gladstone  has  three  little  agate  crosses,  which  he 
'  will  give  you  for  my  little  girls.  Calvert  bought  them,  as  a 
'  present,  for  "  the  bodies,"  at  Martigny  in  Switzerland,  and  I 
'  have  had  no  earlier  opportunity  of  sending  them.  Will  you 
'  dispatch  them  to  Hastings  when  you  have  an  opportunity  ? 
'  I  have  not  yet  seen  Gladstone's  Church  and  State;  but  as 
'  there  is  a  copy  in  Rome,  I  hope  soon  to  lay  hands  on  it.  I 
'  saw  yesterday  in  the  Times  a  furious,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
'  most  absurd  attack  on  him  and  it,  and  the  new  Oxonian 
'  school.' 

February  2%t/i,  1839. — '  There  is  among  the  people  plenty 
'  of  squalid  misery  ;  though  not  nearly  so  much  as,  they  say, 
'  exists  in  Ireland  ;  and  here  there  is  a  certain  freedom  and 
'  freshness  of  manners,  a  dash  of  Southern  enjoyment  in  the 
'  condition  of  the  meanest  and  most  miserable.  There  is,  I 
'  suppose,  as  little  as  well  can  be  of  conscience  or  artificial 
'  cultivation  of  any  kind  ;  but  there  is  not  the  affectation  of  a 
'  virtue  which  they  do  not  possess,  nor  any  feeling  of  being 
'  despised  for  the  want  of  it ;  and  where  life  generally  is  so 
'  inert,  except  as  to  its  passions  and  material  wants,  there  is  not 
'  the  bitter  consciousness  of  having  been  beaten  by  the  more 
'  prosperous,  in  a  race  which  the  greater  number  have  never 
'  thought  of  running.  Among  the  labouring  poor  of  Rome,  a 
'  bribe  will  buy  a  crime  ;  but  if  common  work  procures  enough 
'  for  a  day's  food  or  idleness,  ten  times  the  sum  will  not  induce 
'  them  to  toil  on,  as  an  English  workman  would,  for  the  sake 
'  of  rising  in  the  world.  Sixpence  any  day  will  put  any  of 
'  them  at  the  top  of  the  only  tree  they  care  for, — that  on  which 
'  grows  the  fruit  of  idleness.  It  is  striking  to  see  the  way  in 
'  which,  in  magnificent  churches,  the  most  ragged  beggars 
'  kneel  on  the  pavement  before  some  favourite  altar  in  the 
'  midst  of  well-dressed  women  and  of  gazing  foreigners.  Or 
'  sometimes  you  will  see  one  with  a  child  come  in  from  the 
'  street  where  she  has  been  begging,  put  herself  in  a  corner,  say 
'  a  prayer  (probably  for  the  success  of  her  petitions),  and  then 
'  return  to  beg  again.  There  is  wonderfully  little  of  any  moral 
'  strength  connected  with  this  devotion  ;  but  still  it  is  better 
'  than  nothing,  and  more  than  is  often  found  among  the  men 
'  of  the  upper  classes  in  Rome.  I  believe  the  Clergy  to  be 


ITALY.  151 

'  generally  profligate,  and  the  state  of  domestic  morals  as  bad 
'  as  it  has  ever  been  represented.'— 

Or,  in  sudden  contrast,  take  this  other  glance  homeward  ; 
a  Letter  to  his  eldest  child  ;  in  which  kind  of  Letters,  more 
than  in  any  other,  Sterling  seems  to  me  to  excel.  Readers 
recollect  the  hurricane  in  St.  Vincent ;  the  hasty  removal  to  a 
neighbour's  house,  and  the  birth  of  a  son  there,  soon  after.  The 
boy  has  grown  to  some  articulation,  during  these  seven  years  ; 
and  his  Father,  from  the  new  foreign  scene  of  Priests  and  Di- 
lettanti, thus  addresses  him  : 

'  To  blaster  Edward  C.  Sterling,  Hastings. 

'  Rome,  2ist  January  1839. 

'  MY  DEAR  EDWARD, — I  was  very  glad  to  receive  your  Let- 
'  tcr,  which  showed  me  that  you  have  learned  something  since 
'  I  left  home.  If  you  knew  how  much  pleasure  it  gave  me 
'  to  see  your  handwriting,  I  am  sure  you  would  take  pains  to 
'  be  able  to  write  well,  that  you  might  often  send  me  letters, 
'  and  tell  me  a  great  many  things  which  I  should  like  to  know 
'  about  Mamma  and  your  Sisters  as  well  as  yourself. 

'  If  I  go  to  Vesuvius,  I  will  try  to  carry  away  a  bit  of  the 
'  lava,  which  you  wish  for.  There  has  lately  been  a  great  erup- 
'  tion,  as  it  is  called,  of  that  Mountain  ;  which  means  a  great 
'  breaking-out  of  hot  ashes  and  fire,  and  of  melted  stones  which 
'  is  called  lava. 

'  Miss  Clark  is  very  kind  to  take  so  much  pains  with  you  ; 
'  and  I  trust  you  will  show  that  you  are  obliged  to  her,  by  pay- 
'  ing  attention  to  all  she  tells  you.  When  you  see  how  much 
'  more  grown  people  know  than  you,  you  ought  to  be  anxious 
'  to  learn  all  you  can  from  those  who  teach  you  ;  and  as  there 
'  are  so  many  wise  and  good  things  written  in  Books,  you  ought 
'  to  try  to  read  early  and  carefully;  that  you  may  learn  some- 
'  thing  of  what  God  has  made  you  able  to  know.  There  are 
'  Libraries  containing  very  many  thousands  of  Volumes  ;  and 
'  all  that  is  written  in  these  is, — accounts  of  some  part  or  other 
'  of  the  World  which  God  has  made,  or  of  the  Thoughts  which 
'  he  has  enabled  men  to  have  in  their  minds.  Some  Books  are 
'  descriptions  of  the  earth  itself,  with  its  rocks  and  ground  and 
'  water,  and  of  the  air  and  clouds,  and  the  stars  and  moon  and 
1  sun,  which  shine  so  beautifully  in  the  sky.  Some  tell  you  about 


152  JOHN  STERLING. 

1  the  things  that  grow  upon  the  ground  ;  the  many  millions  of 
'  plants,  from  little  mosses  and  threads  of  grass  up  to  great 
'  trees  and  forests.  Some  also  contain  accounts  of  living  things : 
'  flies,  worms,  fishes,  birds  and  four-legged  beasts.  And  some, 
'  which  are  the  most,  are  about  men  and  their  thoughts  and 
'  doings.  These  are  the  most  important  of  all ;  for  men  are 
'  the  best  and  most  wonderful  creatures  of  God  in  the  world  ; 
'  being  the  only  ones  able  to  know  him  and  love  him,  and  to 
'  try  of  their  own  accord  to  do  his  will. 

'  These  Books  about  men  are  also  the  most  important  to 
'  us,  because  we  ourselves  are  human  beings,  and  may  learn 
'  from  such  Books  what  we  ought  to  think  and-  to  do  and  to 
'  try  to  be.  Some  of  them  describe  what  sort  of  people  have 
'  lived  in  old  times  and  in  other  countries.  By  reading  them, 
'  we  know  what  is  the  difference  between  ourselves  in  England 
'  now,  and  the  famous  nations  which  lived  in  former  days.  Such 
'  were  the  Egyptians  who  built  the  Pyramids,  which  are  the 
'  greatest  heaps  of  stone  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  :  and  the 
'  Babylonians,  who  had  a  city  with  huge  walls,  built  of  bricks, 
'  having  writing  on  them  that  no  one  in  our  time  has  been  able 
'  to  make  out.  There  were  also  the  Jews,  who  were  the  only 
'  ancient  people  that  knew  how  wonderful  and  how  good  God 
'  is  :  and  the  Greeks,  who  were  the  wisest  of  all  in  thinking 
'  about  men's  lives  and  hearts,  and  who  knew  best  how  to  make 
'  fine  statues  and  buildings,  and  to  write  wise  books.  By  Books 
'  also  we  may  learn  what  sort  of  people  the  old  Romans  were, 
'  whose  chief  city  was  Rome,  where  I  am  now ;  and  how  brave 
'  and  skilful  they  were  in  war  ;  and  how  well  they  could  govern 
'  and  teach  many  nations  which  they  had  conquered.  It  is  from 
'  Books,  too,  that  you  must  learn  what  kind  of  men  were  our 
'  Ancestors  in  the  Northern  part  of  Europe,  who  belonged  to 
'  the  tribes  that  did  the  most  towards  pulling-down  the  power 
'  of  the  Romans  :  and  you  will  see  in  the  same  way  how  Chris- 
'  tianity  was  sent  among  them  by  God,  to  make  them  wiser  and 
'  more  peaceful,  and  more  noble  in  their  minds  ;  and  how  all 
'  the  nations  that  now  are  in  Europe,  and  especially  the  Italians 
'  and  the  Germans,  and  the  French  and  the  English,  came  to 
'  be  what  they  now  are. — It  is  well  worth  knowing  (and  it  can 
'  be  known  only  by  reading)  how  the  Germans  found  out  the 
'  Printing  of  Books,  and  what  great  changes  this  has  made  in 


ITALY.  153 

1  the  world.  And  everybody  in  England  ought  to  try  to  under- 
'  stand  how  the  English  came  to  have  their  Parliaments  and 
'  Laws ;  and  to  have  fleets  that  sail  over  all  seas  of  the  world. 

'  Besides  learning  all. these  things,  and  a  great  many  more 
'  about  different  times  and  countries,  you  may  learn  from  Books, 
'  what  is  the  truth  of  God's  will,  and  what  are  the  best  and  wisest 
'  thoughts,  and  the  most  beautiful  words ;  and  how  men  are  able 
'  to  lead  very  right  lives,  and  to  do  a  great  deal  to  better  the 
'  world.  I  have  spent  a  great  part  of  my  life  in  reading  ;  and 
'  I  hope  you  will  come  to  like  it  as  much  as  I  do,  and  to  learn 
'  in  this  way  all  that  I  know. 

'  But  it  is  a  still  more  serious  matter  that  you  should  try  to 
'  be  obedient  and  gentle  ;  and  to  command  your  temper  ;  and 
'  to  think  of  other  people's  pleasure  rather  than  your  own,  and 
'  of  what  you  ought  to  do  rather  than  what  you  like.  If  you 
'  try  to  be  better  for  all  you  read,  as  well  as  wiser,  you  will  find 
'  Books  a  great  help  towards  goodness  as  well  as  knowledge, — 
'  and  above  all  other  Books,  the  Bible  ;  which  tells  us  of  the 
'  will  of  God,  and  of  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ  towards  God  and 
'  men. 

'  I  had  a  Letter  from  Mamma  today,  which  left  Hastings 
'  on  the  loth  of  this  month.  I  was  very  glad  to  find  in  it  that 
'  you  were  all  well  and  happy;  but  I  know  Mamma  is  not  well, 
'  - — and  is  likely  to  be  more  uncomfortable  every  day  for  some 
'  time.  So  I  hope  you  will  all  take  care  to  give  her  as  little 
'  trouble  as  possible.  After  sending  you  so  much  advice,  I  shall 
1  write  a  little  Story  to  divert  you. — I  am,  my  dear  Boy, — Your 
'  affectionate  Father,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

The  'Story'  is  lost,  destroyed,  as  are  many  such  which 
Sterling  wrote,  with  great  felicity,  I  am  told,  and  much  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  young  folk,  when  the  humour  took  him. 

*> 

Besides  these  plentiful  communications  still  left,  I  remember 
long  Letters,  not  now  extant,  principally  addressed  to  his  Wife, 
of  which  we  and  the  circle  at  Knightsbridge  had  due  perusal, 
treating  with  animated  copiousness  about  all  manner  of  picture- 
galleries,  pictures,  statues  and  objects  oi  Art  at  Rome,  and  on 
the  road  to  Rome  and  from  it,  wheresoever  his  course  led  him 
into  neighbourhood  of  such  objects.  That  was  Sterling's  habit. 


154  JOHN  STERLING. 

It  is  expected  in  this  Nineteenth  Century  that  a  man  of  culture 
shall  understand  and  worship  Art :  among  the  windy  gospels 
addressed  to  our  poor  Century  there  are  few  louder  than  this 
of  Art ; — and  if  the  Century  expects  'that  every  man  shall  do 
his  duty,  surely  Sterling  was  not  the  man  to  balk  it !  Various 
extracts  from  these  picture-surveys  are  given  in  Hare ;  the  others, 
I  suppose,  Sterling  himself  subsequently  destroyed,  not  valuing 
them  much. 

Certainly  no  stranger  could  address  himself  more  eagerly  to 
reap  what  artistic  harvest  Rome  offers,  which  is  reckoned  the 
peculiar  produce  of  Rome  among  cities  under  the  sun  ;  to  all 
galleries,  churches,  sistine  chapels,  ruins,  coliseums,  and  artistic 
or  dilettante  shrines  he  zealously  pilgrimed  ;  and  had  much  to 
say  then  and  afterwards,  and  with  real  technical  and  historical 
knowledge  I  believe,  about  the  objects  of  devotion  there.  But 
it  often  struck  me  as  a  question,  Whether  all  this  even  to  him- 
self was  not,  more  or  less,  a  nebulous  kind  of  element ;  pre- 
scribed not  by  Nature  and  her  verities,  but  by  the  Century  ex- 
pecting every  man  to  do  his  duty?  Whether  not  perhaps,  in 
good  part,  temporary  dilettante  cloudland  of  our  poor  Century ; 
— or  can  it  be  the  real  diviner  Pisgah-height,  and  everlasting 
mount  of  vision,  for  man's  soul  in  any  Century?  And  I  think 
Sterling  himself  bent  towards  a  negative  conclusion,  in  the  course 
of  years.  Certainly,  of  all  subjects  this  was  the  one  I  cared  least 
to  hear  even  Sterling  talk  of:  indeed  it  is  a  subject  on  which 
earnest  men,  abhorrent  of  hypocrisy  and  speech  that  has  no 
meaning,  are  admonished  to  silence  in  this  sad  time,  and  had 
better,  in  such  a  Babel  as  we  have  got  into  for  the  present,  '  pe- 
rambulate their  picture-gallery  with  little  or  no  speech.' 

Here  is  another  and  to  me  much  more  earnest  kind  of 'Art,' 
which  renders  Rome  unique  among  the  cities  of  the  world ;  of  this 
we  will,  in  preference,  take  a  glance  through  Sterling's  eyes : 

January  22.d,  1 839. — 'On  Friday  last  there  was  a  great  Fes- 
'  tival  at  St.  Peter's ;  the  only  one  I  have  seen.  The  Church  was 
'  decorated  with  crimson  hangings,  and  the  choir  fitted-up  with 
'  seats  and  galleries,  and  a  throne  for  the  Pope.  There  were 
'  perhaps  a  couple  of  hundred  guards  of  different  kinds  ;  and 
'  three  or  four  hundred  English  ladies,  and  not  so  many  foreign 
'  male  spectators  ;  so  that  the  place  looked  empty.  The  Car- 
'  dinals  in  scarlet,  and  Monsignori  in  purple,  were  there ;  and 


ITALY.  155 

'  a  body  of  officiating  Clergy.  The  Pope  was  carricd-in  in  his 
'  chair  on  men's  shoulders,  wearing  the  Triple  Crown  ;  which 
'  I  have  thus  actually  seen :  it  is  something  like  a  gigantic  Egg, 
'  and  of  the  same  colour,  with  three  little  bands  of  gold, — very 
1  large  Eggshell  with  three  streaks  of  the  yolk  smeared  round  it. 
'  He  was  dressed  in  white  silk  robes,  with  gold  trimmings. 

'  It  was  a  fine  piece  of  state-show  ;  though,  as  there  are 
'  three  or  four  such  Festivals  yearly,  of  course  there  is  none  of 
'  the  eager  interest  which  breaks-out  at  coronations  and  similar 
'  rare  events  ;  no  explosion  of  unwonted  velvets,  jewels,  car- 
'  riages  and  footmen,  such  as  London  and  Milan  have  lately 
'  enjoyed.  I  guessed  all  the  people  in  St.  Peter's,  including 
'  performers  and  spectators,  at  2000  ;  where  20,000  would 
'  hardly  have  been  a  crushing  crowd.  Mass  was  performed, 
'  and  a  stupid  but  short  Latin  sermon  delivered  by  a  lad,  in 
'  honour  of  St.  Peter,  who  would  have  been  much  astonished 
'  if  he  could  have  heard  it.  The  genuflexions,  and  trainbear- 
1  ings,  and  folding-up  the  tails  of  silk-petticoats  while  the  Pon- 
'  tiff  knelt,  and  the  train  of  Cardinals  going  up  to  kiss  his  Ring, 
'  and  so  forth, — made  on  me  the  impression  of  something  im- 
'  measurably  old  and  sepulchral,  such  as  might  suit  the  Grand 
'  Lama's  court,  or  the  inside  of  an  Egyptian  Pyramid  ;  or  as 
'  if  the  Hieroglyphics  on  one  of  the  Obelisks  here  should  begin 
'  to  pace  and  gesticulate,  and  nod  their  bestial  heads  upon  the 
'  granite  tablets.  The  careless  bystanders,  the  London  ladies 
'  with  their  eye-glasses  and  look  of  an  Opera-box,  the  yawning 
'  young  gentlemen  of  the  Guarda  Nobilc,  and  the  laugh  of  one 
'  of  the  file  of  vermilion  Priests  round  the  steps  of  the  altar  at 
'  the  whispered  good  thing  of  his  neighbour,  brought  one  back 
'  to  nothing  indeed  of  a  very  lofty  kind,  but  still  to  the  Nine- 
'  teenth  century.'- — • 

'  At  the  great  Benediction  of  the  City  and  the  World  on 
'  Easter  Sunday  by  the  Pope,'  he  writes  afterwards,  '  there  was 
'  a  large  crowd  both  native  and  foreign,  hundreds  of  carriages, 
'  and  thousands  of  the  lower  orders  of  people  from  the  country  ; 
'  but  even  of  the  poor  hardly  one  in  twenty  took  off  his  hat, 
'  and  a  still  smaller  number  knelt  down.  A  few  years  ago,  not 
'  a  head  was  covered,  nor  was  there  a  knee  which  did  not  bow.' 
— A  very  decadent  "  Holiness  of  our  Lord  the  Pope,"  it  would 
appear ! — 


156  JOHN  STERLING. 

Sterling's  view  of  the  Pope,  as  seen  in  these  his  gala  days, 
doing  his  big  playactorism  under  God's  earnest  sky,  was  much 
more  substantial  to  me  than  his  studies  in  the  picture-galleries. 
To  Mr.  Hare  also  he  writes  :  '  I  have  seen  the  Pope  in  all  his 
'  pomp  at  St.  Peter's  ;  and  he  looked  to  me  a  mere  lie  in  livery. 
'  The  Romish  Controversy  is  doubtless  a  much  more  difficult 
'  one  than  the  managers  of  the  Religious-Tract  Society  fancy, 
'  because  it  is  a  theoretical  dispute  ;  and  in  dealing  with  no- 
'  tions  and  authorities,  I  can  quite  understand  how  a  mere 
'  student  in  a  library,  with  no  eye  for  facts,  should  take  either 
'  one  side  or  other.  But  how  any  man  with  clear  head  and 
4  honest  heart,  and  capable  of  seeing  realities,  and  distinguish- 
'  ing  them  from  scenic  falsehoods,  should,  after  living  in  a 
'  Romanist  country,  and  especially  at  Rome,  be  inclined  to 
1  side  with  Leo  against  Luther,  I  cannot  understand.'1 

It  is  fit  surely  to  recognise  with  admiring  joy  any  glimpse 
of  the  Beautiful  and  the  Eternal  that  is  hung  out  for  us,  in 
colour,  in  form  or  tone,  in  canvas,  stone,  or  atmospheric  air, 
and  made  accessible  by  any  sense,  in  this  world  :  but  it  is 
greatly  fitter  still  (little  as  we  are  used  that  way)  to  shudder 
in  pity  and  abhorrence  over  the  scandalous  tragedy,  trans- 
cendent nadir  of  human  ugliness  and  contemptibility,  which 
under  the  daring  title  of  religious  worship,  and  practical  recog- 
nition of  the  Highest  God,  daily  and  hourly  everywhere  trans- 
acts itself  there.  And,  alas,  not  there  only,  but  elsewhere, 
eveiywhere  more  or  less  ;  whereby  our  sense  is  so  blunted  to 
it ; — whence,  in  all  provinces  of  human  life,  these  tears  ! — 

But  let  us  take  a  glance  at  the  Carnival,  since  we  are  here. 
The  Letters,  as  before,  are  addressed  to  Knightsbridge  ;  the 
date  Rome : 

February  ^th,  1839. — 'The  Carnival  began  yesterday.  It 
'  is  a  curious  example  of  the  trifling  things  which  will  heartily 
'  amuse  tens  oi  thousands  of  grown  people,  precisely  because 
'  they  are  trifling,  and  therefore  a  relief  from  serious  business, 
'  cares  and  labours.  The  Corso  is  a  street  about  a  mile  long, 
1  and  about  as  broad  as  Jermyn  Street ;  but  bordered  by  much 
'  loftier  houses,  with  many  palaces  and  churches,  and  has  two 
'  or  three  small  squares  opening  into  it.  Carriages,  •  mostly 
'  open,  drove  up  and  down  it  for  two  or  three  hours  ;  and  the 
1  Hare,  p.  cxviii. 


ITALY.  157 

contents  were  shot  at  with  handfuls  of  comfits  from  the  win- 
dows,— in  the  hope  of  making  them  as  non-content  as  pos- 
sible,— while  they  returned  the  fire  to  the  best  of  their  inferior 
ability.  The  populace,  among  whom  was  I,  walked  about  ; 
perhaps  one  in  fifty  were  masked  in  character  ;  but  there 
was  little  in  the  masquerade  cither  of  splendour  of  costume 
or  liveliness  of  mimicry.  However,  the  whole  scene  was  very 
gay  ;  there  were  a  good  many  troops  about,  and  some  of 
them  heavy  dragoons,  who  floui'ished  their  swords  with  the 
magnanimity  of  our  Life-Guards,  to  repel  the  encroachments 
of  too-ambitious  little  boys.  Most  of  the  windows  and  bal- 
conies were  hung  with  coloured  drapery  ;  and  there  were 
flags,  trumpets,  nosegays  and  flirtations  of  all  shapes  and 
sixes.  The  best  of  all  was,  that  there  was  laughter  enough 
to  have  frightened  Cassius  out  of  his  thin  carcass,  could  the 
lean  old  homicide  have  been  present,  otherwise  than  as  a 
fleshless  ghost ; — in  which  capacity  I  thought  I  had  a  glimpse 
of  him  looking  over  the  shoulder  of  a  parti-coloured  clown, 
in  a  carriage  full  of  London  Cockneys  driving  towards  the 
Capitol.  This  good-humoured  foolery  will  go  on  for  several 
days  to  come,  ending  always  with  the  celebrated  Horse-race, 
of  horses  without  riders.  The  long  street  is  cleared  in  the 
centre  by  troops,  and  half-a-dozen  quadrupeds,  ornamented 
like  Grimaldi  in  a  London  pantomime,  scamper  away,  with 
the  mob  closing  and  roaring  at  their  heels.' 

February  gth,  1839. — 'The  usual  state  of  Rome  is  quiet 
and  sober.  One  could  almost  fancy  the  actual  generation 
held  their  breath,  and  stole-by  on  tiptoe,  in  presence  of  so 
memorable  a  past.  But  during  the  Carnival  all  mankind, 
womankind  and  childkind  think  it  unbecoming  not  to  play 
the  lool.  The  modern  donkey  pokes  its  head  out  of  the  lion's 
skin  of  old  Rome,  and  brays-out  the  absurdest  of  asinine 
roundelays.  Conceive  twenty  thousand  grown  people  in  a 
long  street,  at  the  windows,  on  the  footways,  and  in  carriages, 
amused  day  after  day  for  several  hours  in  pelting  and  being 
pelted  with  handfuls  01  mock  or  real  sugar-plums  ;  and  this 
no  name  or  pretence,  but  real  downright  showers  of  plaster 
comrits,  from  which  people  guard  their  eyes  with  meshes  of 
wire.  As  sure  as  a  carriage  passes  under  a  window  or  balcony 
where  are  acquaintances  of  theirs,  down  comes  a  shower  of 


158  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  hail,  ineffectually  returned  from  below.  The  parties  in  two 
'  crossing  carriages  similarly  assault  each  other  ;  and  there  are 
'  long  balconies  hung  the  whole  way  with  a  deep  canvas  pocket 
'  full  of  this  mortal  shot.  One  Russian  Grand  Duke  goes  with 
'  a  troop  of  youngsters  in  a  wagon,  all  dressed  in  brown  linen 
'  frocks  and  masked,  and  pelts  among  the  most  furious,  also 
'  being  pelted.  The  children  are  of  course  preeminently  vigor- 
'  ous,  and  there  is  a  considerable  circulation  of  real  sugar-plums, 
'  which  supply  consolation  for  all  disappointments.' 

The  whole  to  conclude,  as  is  proper,  with  a  display,  with 
two  displays,  of  fire-works;  in  which  art,  as  in  some  others, 
Rome  is  unrivalled  : 

February  gth,  1839. — '  It  seems  to  be  the  ambition  of  all 
1  the  lower  classes  to  wear  a  mask  and  showy  grotesque  dis- 
'  guise  of  some  kind  ;  and  I  believe  many  of  the  upper  ranks 
'  do  the  same.  They  even  put  St.  Peter's  into  masquerade ; 
'  and  make  it  a  Cathedral  of  Lamplight  instead  of  a  stone  one. 
'  Two  evenings  ago  this  feat  was  performed  ;  and  I  was  able 
'  to  see  it  from  the  rooms  of  a  friend  near  this,  which  command 
'  an  excellent  view  of  it.  I  never  saw  so  beautiful  an  effect  of 
'  artificial  light.  The  evening  was  perfectly  serene  and  clear  ; 
'  the  principal  lines  of  the  building,  the  columns,  architrave  and 
'  pediment  of  the  front,  the  two  inferior  cupolas,  the  curves  of 
'  the  dome  from  which  the  dome  rises,  the  ribs  of  the  dome 
'  itself,  the  small  oriel  windows  between  them,  and  the  lantern 
'  and  ball  and  cross, — all  were  delineated  in  the  clear  vault  of 
'  air  by  lines  of  pale  yellow  fire.  The  dome  of  another  great 
'  Church,  much  nearer  to  the  eye,  stood  up  as  a  great  black 
'  mass, — a  funereal  contrast  to  the  luminous  tabernacle. 

'  While  I  was  looking  at  this  latter,  a  red  blaze  burst  from 
'  the  summit,  and  at  the  same  moment  seemed  to  flash  over 
'  the  whole  building,  filling-up  the  pale  outline  with  a  simul- 
'  taneous  burst  of  fire.  This  is  a  celebrated  display  ;  and  is 
'  done,  I  believe,  by  the  employment  of  a  very  great  number  of 
'  men  to  light,  at  the  same  instant,  the  torches  which  are  fixed 
'  for  the  purpose  all  over  the  building.  After  the  first  glare 
'  of  fire,  I  did  not  think  the  second  aspect  of  the  building  so 
1  beautiful  as  the  first ;  it  wanted  both  softness  and  distinct- 
'  ness.  The  two  most  animated  days  of  the  Carnival  are  still 
4  to  come.' 


ITALY.  159 

April  AftJi,  1839. — 'We  have  just  come  to  the  termination 
'  of  all  the  Easter  spectacles  here.  On  Sunday  evening  St. 
'  Peter's  was  a  second  time  illuminated  •  I  was  in  the  Piazza, 
'  and  admired  the  sight  from  a  nearer  point  than  when  I  had 
'  seen  it  before  at  the  time  of  the  Carnival. 

'  On  Monday  evening  the  celebrated  fire-works  were  let-off 
'  from  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo  ;  they  were  said  to  be,  in  some 
'  respects,  more  brilliant  than  usual.  I  certainly  never  saw  any 
1  fire-works  comparable  to  them  for  beauty.  The  Girandola  is 
'  a  discharge  of  many  thousands  of  rockets  at  once,  which  of 
'  course  fall  back,  like  the  leaves  of  a  lily,  and  form  for  a  minute 
'  a  very  beautiful  picture.  There  was  also  in  silvery  light  a 
'  very  long  Fagade  of  a  Palace,  which  looked  a  residence  for 
'  Oberon  and  Titania,  and  beat  Aladdin's  into  darkness.  After- 
'  wards  a  series  of  cascades  of  red  fire  poured  down  the  faces 
'  of  the  Castle  and  of  the  scaffoldings  round  it,  and  seemed  a 
'  burning  Niagara.  Of  course  there  were  abundance  of  serpents, 
'  wheels  and  cannon-shot  ;  there  was  also  a  display  of  dazzling 
'  white  light,  which  made  a  strange  appearance  on  the  houses, 
'  the  river,  the  bridge,  and  the  faces  of  the  multitude.  The 
'  whole  ended  with  a  second  and  a  more  splendid  Girandola.' 

Take  finally,  to  people  the  scene  a  little  for  us,  if  our  ima- 
gination be  at  all  lively,  these  three  small  entries,  of  different 
dates,  and  so  wind-up  : 

December  ^ot/i,  1838.  —  'I  received  on  Christmas -day  a 
'  packet  from  Dr.  Carlyle,  containing  Letters  from  the  Mau- 
'  rices  ;  which  were  a  very  pleasant  arrival.  The  Dr.  wrote 
'  a  few  lines  with  them,  mentioning  that  he  was  only  at  Civita 
'  Vecchia  while  the  steamer  baited  on  its  way  to  Naples.  I 
'  have  written  to  thank  him  for  his  despatches.' 

March  i6th,  1839. — 'I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  John 
'  Mill,  whose  society  I  like  much.  He  enters  heartily  into  the 
'  interest  of  the  things  which  I  most  care  for  here,  and  I  have 
'  seldom  had  more  pleasure  than  in  taking  him  to  see  Rafiael's 
'  Loggie,  where  arc  the  Frescoes  called  his  Bible,  and  to  the 
'  Sixtine  Chapel,  which  I  admire  and  love  more  and  more.  He 
'  is  in  very  weak  health,  but  as  fresh  and  clear  in  mind  as 
'  possible.'  ••'  ••'  ;'';  '  English  politics  seem  in  a  queer  state,  the 
'  Conservatives  creeping  on,  the  Whigs  losing  ground  ;  like 


160  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  combatants  on  the  top  of  a  breach,  while  there  is  a  social 
'  mine  below  which  will  probably  blow  both  parties  into  the  air.' 
April  4//i,  1 839. — '  I  walked  out  on  Tuesday  on  the  Ancona 
'  Road,  and  about  noon  met  a  travelling  carriage,  which  from  a 
'  distance  looked  very  suspicious,  and  on  nearer  approach  was 
'  found  really  to  contain  Captain  Sterling  and  an  Albanian  man- 
'  servant  on  the  front,  and  behind  under  the  hood  Mrs.  A. 
'  Sterling  and  the  she  portion  of  the  tail.  They  seemed  very 
'  well  ;  and,  having  turned  the  Albanian  back  to  the  rear  of 
'  the  whole  machine,  I  sat  by  Anthony,  and  entered  Rome  in 
'  triumph.' — Here  is  indeed  a  conquest !  Captain  A.  Sterling, 
now  on  his  return  from  service  in  Corfu,  meets  his  Brother  in 
this  manner ;  and  the  remaining  Roman  days  are  of  a  brighter 
complexion.  As  these  suddenly  ended,  I  believe  he  turned 
southward,  and  found  at  Naples  the  Dr.  Carlyle  above  men- 
tioned (an  extremely  intimate  acquaintance  of  mine),  who  was 
still  there.  For.  we  are  a  most  travelling  people,  we  of  this 
Island  in  this  time  ;  and,  as  the  Prophet  threatened,  see  our- 
selves, in  so  many  senses,  made  '  like  unto  a  wheel  !'— 

Sterling  returned  from  Italy  filled  with  much  cheerful  imagery 
and  reminiscence,  and  great  store  of  artistic,  serious,  dilettant 
and  other  speculation  for  the  time  ;  improved  in  health,  too  ; 
but  probably  little  enriched  in  real  culture  or  spiritual  strength ; 
and  indeed  not  permanently  altered  by  his  tour  in  any  respect 
to  a  sensible  extent,  that  one  could  notice.  He  returned  rather 
in  haste,  and  before  the  expected  time  ;  summoned,  about  the 
middle  of  April,  by  his  Wife's  domestic  situation  at  Hastings  ; 
who,  poor  lady,  had  been  brought  to  bed  before  her  calcu- 
lation, and  had  in  few  days  lost  her  infant ;  and  now  saw  a 
household  round  her  much  needing  the  master's  presence.  He 
hurried  off  to  Malta,  dreading  the  Alps  at  that  season  ;  and 
came  home,  by  steamer,  with  all  speed,  early  in  May  1839. 


PART  THIRD. 

CHAPTER  I. 

CLIFTON. 

MATTERS  once  readjusted  at  Hastings,  it  was  thought  Sterling's 
health  had  so  improved,  and  his  activities  towards  Literature 
so  developed  themselves  into  congruity,  that  a  permanent  English 
place  of  abode  might  now  again  be  selected, — on  the  South-west 
coast  somewhere, — and  the  family  once  more  have  the  blessing 
of  a  home,  and  see  its  lares  a.\\&  penates  and  household  furniture 
unlocked  from  the  Pantechnicon  repositories,  where  they  had 
so  long  been  lying. 

Clifton,  by  Bristol,  with  its  soft  Southern  winds  and  high 
cheerful  situation,  recommended  too  by  the  presence  of  one  or 
more  valuable  acquaintances  there,  was  found  to  be  the  eligible 
place;  and  thither  in  this  summer  of  1839,  having  found  a 
tolerable  lodging,  with  the  prospect  by  and  by  of  an  agreeable 
house,  he  and  his  removed.  This  was  the  end  of  what  I  call 
his  'third  peregrinity ;'—  or  reckoning  the  West  Indies  one,  his 
fourth.  This  also  is,  since  Bayswater,  the  fourth  time  his  family 
has  had  to  shift  on  his  account.  Bayswater  ;  then  to  Bordeaux, 
to  Blackheath  and  Knightsbridge  (during  the  Madeira  time),  to 
Hastings  (Roman  time)  ;  and  now  to  Clifton,  not  to  stay  there 
either :  a  sadly  nomadic  life  to  be  prescribed  to  a  civilised  man ! 

At  Clifton  his  habitation  was  speedily  enough  setup;  house- 
hold conveniences,  methods  of  work,  daily  promenades  on  foot 
or  horseback,  and  before  long  even  a  circle  of  friends,  or  of 
kindly  neighbourhoods  ripening  into  intimacy,  were  established 
round  him.  In  all  this  no  man  could  be  more  expert  or  expe- 
ditious, in  such  cases.  It  was  with  singular  facility,  in  a  loving, 

M 


162  JOHN  STERLING. 

hoping  manner,  that  he  threw  himself  open  to  the  new  interests 
and  capabilities  of  the  new  place  ;  snatched  out  of  it  whatsoever 
of  human  or  material  would  suit  him  ;  and  in  brief,  in  all  senses 
had  pitched  his  tent-habitation,  and  grew  to  look  on  it  as  a 
house.  It  was  beautiful  too,  as  well  as  pathetic.  This  man 
saw  himself  reduced  to  be  a  dweller  in  tents,  his  house  is  but  a 
stone  tent  ;  and  he  can  so  kindly  accommodate  himself  to  that 
arrangement  ; — healthy  faculty  and  diseased  necessity,  -nature 
and  habit,  and  all  manner  of  things  primary  and  secondary, 
original  and  incidental,  conspiring  now  to  make  it  easy  for 
him.  With  the  evils  of  nomadism,  he  participated  to  the  full 
in  whatever  benefits  lie  in  it  for  a  man. 

He  had  friends  enough,  old  and  new,  at  Clifton,  whose 
intercourse  made  the  place  human  for  him.  Perhaps  among 
the  most  valued  of  the  former  sort  may  be  mentioned  Mrs. 
Edward  Strachey,  Widow  of  the  late  Indian  Judge,  who  now 
resided  here ;  a  cultivated,  graceful,  most  devout  and  high- 
minded  lady  ;  whom  he  had  known  in  old  years,  first  probably 
as  Charles  Buller's  Aunt,  and  whose  esteem  was  constant  for 
him,  and  always  precious  to  him.  She  was  some  ten  or  twelve 
years  older  than  he  ;  she  survived  him  some  years,  but  is  now 
also  gone  from  us.  Of  new  friends  acquired  here,  besides  a 
skilful  and  ingenious  Dr.  Symonds,  physician  as  well  as  friend, 
the  principal  was  Francis  Newman,  then  and  still  an  ardently 
inquiring  soul,  of  fine  University  and  other  attainments,  of 
sharp-cutting,  restlessly  advancing  intellect,  and  the  mildest 
pious  enthusiasm  ;  whose  worth,  since  better  known  to  all  the 
world,  Sterling  highly  estimated  ; — and  indeed  practically  testi- 
fied the  same  ;  having  by  will  appointed  him,  some  years  hence, 
guardian  to  his  eldest  Son  ;  which  pious  function  Mr.  Newman 
now  successfully  discharges. 

Sterling  was  not  long  in  certainty  as  to  his  abode  at  Clifton : 
alas,  where  could  he  long  be  so  ?  Hardly  six  months  were 
gone  when  his  old  enemy  again  overtook  him  ;  again  admon- 
ished him  how  frail  his  hopes  of  permanency  were.  Each 
winter,  it  turned  out,  he  had  to  fly  ;  and  after  the  second 
of  these,  he  quitted  the  place  altogether.  Here,  meanwhile,  in 
a  Letter  to  myself,  and  in  Excerpts  from  others,  are  some 
glimpses  of  his  advent  and  first  summer  there  : 


CLIFTON.  163 

Clifton,  June  nth,  1839  (To  his  Mother). — 'As  yet  I  am 
'  personally  very  uncomfortable  from  the  general  confusion  of 
'  this  house,  which  deprives  me  of  my  room  to  sit  and  read  and 
'  write  in  ;  all  being  more  or  less  lumbered  by  boxes,  and  in- 
'  vaded  by  servile  domesticities  aproned,  handled,  bristled,  and 
'  of  nondescript  varieties.  We  have  very  fine  warm  weather, 
'  with  occasional  showers  ;  and  the  verdure  of  the  woods  and 
'  fields  is  very  beautiful.  Bristol  seems  as  busy  as  need  be  ; 
'  and  the  shops  and  all  kinds  of  practical  conveniences  are  ex- 
'  cellent ;  but  those  of  Clifton  have  the  usual  sentimental,  not 
'  to  say  meretricious  fraudulence  of  commercial  establishments 
'  in  Watering-places. 

'  The  bag  which  Hannah  forgot  reached  us  safely  at  Bath 
'  on  Friday  morning  ;  but  I  cannot  quite  unriddle  the  mystery 
'  of  the  change  of  padlocks,  for  I  left  the  right  one  in  care  of  the 
'  Head  Steam-engine  at  Paddington,  which  seemed  a  very  de- 
'  cent  person  with  a  good  black  coat  on,  and  a  pen  behind  its 
'  ear.  I  have  been  meditating  much  on  the  story  of  Palarea's 
'  "  box  of  papers  ;"  which  does  not  appear  to  be  in  my  posses- 
'  sion,  and  I  have  a  strong  impression  that  I  gave  it  to  young 
'  Florez  Calderon.  I  will  write  to  say  so  to  Madam  Torrijos 
'  speedily.'  Palarea,  Dr.  Palarea,  I  understand,  was  'an  old 
guerrilla  leader  whom  they  called  El  Medico.'  Of  him  and  of 
the  vanished  shadows,  now  gone  to  Paris,  to  Madrid,  or  out  of 
the  world,  let  us  say  nothing  ! 

June  T.$th,  1839  (To  myself]. — '  We  have  a  room  now  oc- 
'  cupied  by  Robert  Barton,"  a  brother-in-law  ;  '  to  which 
'  Anthony  may  perhaps  succeed;  but  which  after  him,  or  in  lieu 
'  of  him,  would  expand  itself  to  receive  you.  Is  there  no  hope 
'  of  your  coming  ?  I  would  undertake  to  ride  with  you  at  all 
'  possible  paces,  and  in  all  existing  directions. 

'  As  yet  my  books  are  lying  as  ghost  books,  in  a  limbo  on 
'  the  banks  of  a  certain  Bristolian  Styx,  humanly  speaking,  a 
'  Canal ;  but  the  other  apparatus  of  life  is  gathered  about  me, 
'  and  performs  its  diurnal  functions.  The  place  pleases  me 
'  better  than  I  expected:  a  far  look-out  on  all  sides,  over  green 
'  country  ;  a  sufficient  old  City  lying  in  the  hollow  near  ;  and 
'  civilisation,  in  no  tumultuous  state,  rather  indeed  stagnant, 
'  visible  in  the  Rows  of  Houses  and  Gardens  which  call  them- 
'  selves  Clifton.  I  hope  soon  to  take  a  lease  of  a  house,  where 


164  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  I  may  arrange  myself  more  methodically;  keep  myself  equably 
1  boiling  in  my  own  kitchen  ;  and  spread  myself  over  a  series  of 
'  book-shelves.' — '  I  have  just  been  interrupted  by  a  visit  from 
'  Mrs.  Strachey  ;  with  whom  I  dined  yesterday.  She  seems  a 
'  very  good  and  thoroughly  kind-hearted  woman  ;  and  it  is 
'  pleasant  to  have  her  for  a  neighbour.' — '  I  have  read  Emer- 
'  son's  Pamphlets.  I  should  find  it  more  difficult  than  ever  to 
'  write  to  him.' 

June  T,oth,  1 839  (To  his  Father). — '  Of  Books  I  shall  have 
'  no  lack,  though  no  plethora  ;  and  the  Reading-room  supplies 
'  all  one  can  want  in  the  way  of  Papers  and  Reviews.  I  go 
'  there  three  or  four  times  a  week,  and  inquire  how  the  human 
'  race  goes  on.  I  suppose  this  Turco-Egyptian  War  will  throw 
'  several  diplomatists  into  a  state  of  great  excitement,  and  mas- 
'  sacre  a  good  many  thousands  of  Africans  and  Asiatics  ? — For 
'  the  present,  it  appears,  the  English  Education  Question  is  set- 
'  tied.  I  wish  the  Government  had  said  that,  in  their  inspection 
'  and  superintendence,  they  would  look  only  to  secular  matters, 
'  and  leave  religious  ones  to  the  persons  who  set-up  the  schools, 
'  whoever  these  might  be.  It  seems  to  me  monstrous  that  the 
'  State  should  be  prevented  taking  any  efficient  measures  for 
'  teaching  Roman  Catholic  children  to  read,  write  and  cipher, 
'  merely  because  they  believe  in"  the  Pope,  and  the  Pope  is  an 
'  impostor, — which  I  candidly  confess  he  is  !  There  is  no  ques- 
'  tion  which  I  can  so  ill  endure  to  see  made  a  party  one  as  that 
'  of  Education.' — The  following  is  of  the  same  day: 

*  To  Thomas  Carlyle,  Esq.,  Chelsea,  London. 

'  Manor  House,  Clifton  Place,  Clifton, 
'  3Oth  June  1839. 

'  MY  DEAR  CARLYLE, — I  have  heard,  this  morning,  from  my 
'  Father,  that  you  are  to  set-out  on  Tuesday  for  Scotland  :  so 
'  I  have  determined  to  fillip  away  some  spurt  of  ink  in  your  di- 
'  rection,  which  may  reach  you  before  you  move  towards  Thule. 

'  Writing  to  you,  in  fact,  is  considerably  easier  than  writing 
'  about  you  ;  which  has  been  my  employment  of  late,  at  leisure 
'  moments, — that  is,  moments  of  leisure  from  idleness,  network. 
'  As  you  partly  guessed,  I  took  in  hand  a  Review  of  Teufels- 
'  dr'ockh — for  want  of  a  better  Heuschrecke  to  do  the  work  ; 


CLIFTON.  165 

'  and  when  I  have  been  well  enough,  and  alert  enough,  during 
'  the  last  fortnight,  have  tried  to  set  down  some  notions  about 
'  Tobacco,  Radicalism,  Christianity,  Assafbetida  and  so  forth. 
'  But  a  few  abortive  pages  are  all  the  result  as  yet.  If  my  spe- 
'  dilations  should  ever  see  daylight,  they  may  chance  to  get  you 
'  into  scrapes,  but  will  certainly  get  me  into  worse.'  *  *  *  'But 
'  one  must  work  ;  sic  itur  ad  astra, — and  the  astra  are  always 
'  there  to  befriend  one,  at  least  as  asterisks,  filling-up  the. gaps 
'  which  yawn  in  vain  for  words. 

'  Except  my  unsuccessful  efforts  to  discuss  you  and  your 
'  offences,  I  have  done  nothing  that  leaves  a  trace  behind  ; — 
'  unless  the  endeavour  to  teach  my  little  boy  the  Latin  de- 
'  clensions  shall  be  found,  at  some  time  short  of  the  Last  Day, 
'  to  have  done  so.  I  have, — rather  I  think  from  dyspepsia  than 
'  dyspneumony, — been  often  and  for  days  disabled  from  doing 
'  anything  but  read.  In  this  way  I  have  gone  through  a  good 
'  deal  of  Strauss's  Book  ;  which  is  exceedingly  clever  and  clear- 
'  headed  ;  with  more  of  insight,  and  less  of  destructive  rage  than 
'  I  expected.  It  will  work  deep  and  far,  in  such  a  time  as  ours. 
'  When  so  many  minds  are  distracted  about  the  history,  or 
'  rather  genesis  of  the  Gospel,  it  is  a  great  thing  for  partisans 
'  on  the  one  side  to  have,  what  the  other  never  have  wanted,  a 
'  Book  of  which  they  can  say,  This  is  our  Creed  and  Code, — or 
'  rather  Anti-creed  and  Anti-code.  And  Strauss  seems  perfectly 
'  secure  against  the  sort  of  answer  to  which  Voltaire's  critical 
'  and  historical  shallowness  perpetually  exposed  him.  I  mean 
'  to  read  the  Book  through.  It  seems  admitted  that  the  orthodox 
1  theologians  have  failed  to  give  any  sufficient  answer. — I  have 
•  also  looked  through  Michelet'sLuiAer,  with  great  delight;  and 
'  have  read  the  fourth  volume  of  Coleridge's  Literary  Remains, 
1  in  which  there  are  things  that  would  interest  you.  He  has  a 
'  great  hankering  after  Cromwell,  and  explicitly  defends  the 
'  execution  of  Charles. 

'  Of  Mrs.  Strachey  we  have  seen  a  great  deal ;  and  might 
1  have  seen  more,  had  I  had  time  and  spirits  for  it.  She  is  a 
'  warm-hearted,  enthusiastic  creature,  whom  one  cannot  but  like. 
'  She  seems  always  excited  by  the  wish  for  more  excitement  than 
1  her  life  affords.  And  such  a  person  is  always  in  danger  of 
'  doing  something  less  wise  than  his  best  knowledge  and  aspira- 
'  tions  ;  because  he  must  do  something,  and  circumstances  do 


166  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  not  allow  him  to  do  what  he  desires.  Thence,  after  the  first 
'  glow  of  novelty,  endless  self-tormenting  comes  from  the  con- 
'  trast  between  aims  and  acts.  She  sets  out,  with  her  daughter 
'  and  two  boys,  for  a  Tour  in  Wales  tomorrow  morning.  Her 
'  talk  of  you  is  always  most  affectionate ;  and  few,  I  guess,  will 
'  read  Sartor  with  more  interest  than  she. 

'  I  am  still  in  a  very  extempore  condition  as  to  house,  books, 
'  &c.  One  which  I  have  hired  for  three  years  will  be  given  up 
'  to  me  in  the  middle  of  August  ;  and  then  I  may  hope  to  have 
'  something  like  a  house, — so  far  as  that  is  possible  for  any  one 
'  to  whom  Time  itself  is  often  but  a  worse  or  a  better  kind  ot 
'  cave  in  the  desert.  We  have  had  rainy  and  cheerless  weather 
'  almost  since  the  day  of  our  arrival.  But  the  sun  now  shines 
'  more  lovingly,  and  the  skies  seem  less  disdainful  of  man  and 
'  his  perplexities.  The  earth  is  green,  abundant  and  beautiful. 
'  But  human  life,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  is  mean  and  meagre 
'  enough  in  its  purposes,  however  striking  to  the  speculative  or 
'  sentimental  bystander.  Pray  be  assured  that  whatever  you 
'  may  say  of  the  "landlord  at  Clifton,"1  the  more  I  know  of 
'  him,  the  less  I  shall  like  him.  Well  with  me  if  I  can  put-up 
'  with  him  for  the  present,  and. make  use  of  him,  till  at  last  I 
'  can  joyfully  turn  him  off  forever ! 

'  Love  to  your  Wife  and  self.  My  little  Charlotte  desires  me 
'  to  tell  you  that  she  has  new  shoes  for  her  Doll,  which  she  will 
'  show  you  when  you  come. — Yours,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

The  visit  to  Clifton  never  took  effect ;  nor  to  any  of  Ster- 
ling's subsequent  homes  ;  which  now  is  matter  of  regret  to  me. 
Concerning  the  '  Review  of  TeufehdrockK  there  will  be  more 
to  say  anon.  As  to  'little  Charlotte  and  her  Doll,'  I  remember 
well  enough  and  was  more  than  once  reminded,  this  bright  little 
creature,  on  one  of  my  first  visits  to  Bayswater,  had  earnestly 
applied  to  me  to  put  her  Doll's  shoes  on  for  her ;  which  feat 
was  performed. — The  next  fragment  indicates  a  household  set- 
tled, fallen  into  wholesome  routine  again  ;  and  may  close  the 
series  here : 

July  22^,  1839  (To  his  Mother]. — 'A  few  evenings  ago  we 
'  went  to  Mr.  Griffin's,  and  met  there  Dr.  Prichard,  the  author 
'  oi  a  well-known  Book  on  the  Races  of  Mankind,  to  which  it 

1  Of  Sterling  himself,  I  suppose. 


CLIFTON.  167 

'  stands  in  the  same  relation  among  English  books  as  the  Racing 
'  Calendar  docs  to  those  of  Horsekind.  He  is  a  very  intelligent, 
'  accomplished  person.  We  had  also  there  the  Dean  ;  a  certain 
4  Dr.  —  —  of  Corpus  College,  Cambridge  (a  booby)  ;  and  a 
'  clever  fellow,  a  Mr.  Fisher,  one  of  the  Tutors  of  Trinity  in  my 
'  days.  We  had  a  very  pleasant  evening.' — 

At  London  we  were  in  the  habit  of  expecting  Sterling  pretty 
often  ;  his  presence,  in  this  house  as  in  others,  was  looked  for, 
once  in  the  month  or  two,  and  came  always  as  sunshine  in  the 
gray  weather  to  m<5  and  mine.  My  daily  walks  with  him  had 
long  since  been  cut-short  without  renewal ;  that  walk  to  Eltham 
and  Edgeworth's  perhaps  the  last  of  the  kind  he  and  I  had  :  but 
our  intimacy,  deepening  and  widening  year  after  year,  knew  no 
interruption  or  abatement  of  increase  ;  an  honest,  frank  and 
truly  human  mutual  relation,  valuable  or  even  invaluable  to  both 
parties,  and  a  lasting  loss,  hardly  to  be  replaced  in  this  world, 
to  the  survivor  of  the  two. 

His  visits,  which  were  usually  of  two  or  three  days,  were 
always  full  of  business,  rapid  in  movement  as  all  his  life  was. 
To  me,  if  possible,  he  would  come  in  the  evening  ;  a  whole  cor- 
nucopia of  talk  and  speculation  was  to  be  discharged.  If  the 
evening  would  not  do,  and  my  affairs  otherwise  permitted,  I  had 
to  mount  into  cabs  with  him  ;  fly  far  and  wide,  shuttling  athwart 
the  big  Babel,  wherever  his  calls  and  pauses  had  to  be.  This  was 
his  way  to  husband  time  !  Our  talk,  in  such  straitened  circum- 
stances, was  loud  or  low  as  the  circumambient  groaning  rage 
of  wheels  and  sound  prescribed, — very  loud  it  had  to  be  in  such 
thoroughfares  as  London  Bridge  and  Chcapside  ;  but  except 
while  he  was  absent,  off  for  minutes  into  some  banker's  office, 
lawyer's,  stationer's,  haberdasher's  or  what  office  there  might  be, 
it  never  paused.  In  this  way  extensive  strange  dialogues  were 
carried  on :  to  me  also  very  strange, — private  friendly  colloquies, 
on  all  manner  of  rich  subjects,  held  thus  amid  the  chaotic  roar 
of  things.  Sterling  was  full  of  speculations,  observations  and 
bright  sallies  ;  vividly  awake  to  what  was  passing  in  the  world  ; 
glanced  pertinently  with  victorious  clearness,  without  spleen, 
though  often  enough  with  a  dash  t>f  mockery,  into  its  Puseyisms, 
Liberalisms,  literary  Lionisms,  or  what  else  the  mad  hour  might 
be  producing, — always  prompt  to  recognise  what  grain  of  sanity 
might  be  in  the  same.  He  was  opulent  in  talk,  and  the  rapid 


168  JOHN  STERLING. 

movement  and  vicissitude  on  such  occasions  seemed  to  give  him 
new  excitement. 

Once,  I  still  remember, — it  was  some  years  before,  probably 
in  May,  on  his  return  from  Madeira, — he  undertook  a  day's 
riding  with  me  ;  once  and  never  again.  We  coursed  extensively 
over  the  Hampstead  and  Highgate  regions,  and  the  country 
beyond,  sauntering  or  galloping  through  many  leafy  lanes  and 
pleasant  places,  in  everflowing,  everchanging  talk  ;  and  returned 
down  Regent  Street  at  nightfall :  one  of  the  cheerfulest  days  I 
ever  had ; — not  to  be  repeated,  said  the  Fates.  Sterling  was 
charming  on  such  occasions  :  at  once  a  child  and  a  gifted  man. 
A  serious  fund  of  thought  he  always  had,  a  serious  drift  you 
never  missed  in  him  :  nor  indeed  had  he  much  depth  of  real 
laughter  or  sense  of  the  ludicrous,  as  I  have  elsewhere  said  ; 
but  what  he  had  was  genuine,  free  and  continual :  his  sparkling 
sallies  bubbled-up  as  from  aerated  natural  fountains  ;  a  mild 
dash  of  gaiety  was  native  to  the  man,  and  had  moulded  his  phy- 
siognomy in  a  very  graceful  way.  We  got  once  into  a  cab,  about 
Charing  Cross  ;  I  know  not  now  whence  or  well  whitherward, 
nor  that  our  haste  was  at  all  special ;  however,  the  cabman, 
sensible  that  his  pace  was  slowish,  took  to  whipping,  with  a 
steady,  passionless,  business-like  assiduity  which,  though  the 
horse  seemed  lazy  rather  than  weak,  became  afflictive  ;  and  I 
urged  remonstrance  with  the  savage  fellow  :  "  Let  him  alone," 
answered  Sterling  ;  "he  is  kindling  the  enthusiasm  of  his  horse, 
"  you  perceive  ;  that  is  the  first  thing,  then  we  shall  do  very 
"  well !" — as  accordingly  we  did. 

At  Clifton,  though  his  thoughts  began  to  turn  more  on 
poetic  forms  of  composition,  he  was  diligent  in  prose  elabo- 
rations too, — doing  Criticism,  for  one  thing,  as  we  incident- 
ally observed.  He  wrote  there,  and  sent  forth  in  this  autumn 
of  1839,  his  most  important  contribution  to  John  Mill's  Re- 
view, the  article  on  Carlyle,  which  stands  also  in  Mr.  Hare's 
collection.2  What  its  effect  on  the  public  was  I  knew  not,  and 
know  not ;  but  remember  well,  and  may  here  be  permitted 
to  acknowledge,  the  deep  silent  joy,  not  of  a  weak  or  ignoble 
nature,  which  it  gave  to  myself  in  my  then  mood  and  situation  ; 
as  it  well  might.  The  first  generous  human  recognition,  ex- 

2  Hare,  i.  p.  252. 


CLIFTON.  169 

pressed  with  heroic  emphasis,  and  clear  conviction  visible  amid 
its  fiery  exaggeration,  that  one's  poor  battle  in  this  world  is  not 
quite  a  mad  and  futile,  that  it  is  perhaps  a  worthy  and  manful 
one,  which  will  come  to  something  yet  :  this  fact  is  a  memor- 
able one  in  every  history  ;  and  for  me  Sterling,  often  enough 
the  stiff  gainsaycr  in  our  private  communings,  was  the  doer  of 
this.  The  thought  burnt  in  me  like  a  lamp,  for  several  days  ; 
lighting-up  into  a  kind  of  heroic  splendour  the  sad  volcanic 
wrecks,  abysses,  and  convulsions  of  said  poor  battle,  and 
secretly  I  was  very  grateful  to  my  daring  friend,  and  am  still, 
and  ought  to  be.  What  the  public  might  be  thinking  about 
him  and  his  audacities,  and  me  in  consequence,  or  whether 
it  thought  at  all,  I  never  learned,  or  much  heeded  to  learn. 

Sterling's  gainsaying  had  given  way  on  many  points  ;  but 
on  others  it  continued  stiff  as  ever,  as  may  be  seen  in  that 
article  ;  indeed  he  fought  Parthian-like  in  such  cases,  holding 
out  his  last  position  as  doggedly  as  the  first  :  and  to  some  of 
my  notions  he  seemed  to  grow  in  stubbornness  of  opposition, 
with  the  growing  inevitability,  and  never  would  surrender. 
Especially  that  doctrine  of  the  '  greatness  and  fruitfulness  of 
Silence,' remained  afflictive  and  incomprehensible  :  "Silence?" 
he  would  say  :  ' '  Yes,  truly  ;  if  they  give  you  leave  to  proclaim 
silence  by  cannon-salvoes  !  My  Harpocrates-Stentor  !"  In 
like  manner,  '  Intellect  and  Virtue,'  how  they  are  proportional, 
or  are  indeed  one  gift  in  us,  the  same  great  summary  of  gifts  ; 
and  again,  'Might  and  Right,'  the  identity  of  these  two,  if  a 
man  will  understand  this  God's-Universe,  and  that  only  he 
who  conforms  to  the  law  of  //  can  in  the  longrun  have  any 
'  might  :'  all  this,  at  the  first  blush,  often  awakened  Sterling's 
musketry  upon  me,  and  many  volleys  I  have  had  to  stand, — 
the  thing  not  being  dccidablc  by  that  kind  of  weapon  or  strategy. 

In  such  cases  your  one  method  was  to  leave  our  friend 
in  peace.  By  small-arms  practice  no  mortal  could  dislodge 
him  :  but  if  you  were  in  the  right,  the  silent  hours  would  work 
continually  for  you  ;  and  Sterling,  more  certainly  than  any 
man,  would  and  must  at  length  swear  fealty  to  the  right,  and 
passionately  adopt  it,  burying  all  hostilities  under  foot.  A 
more  candid  soul,  once  let  the  stormful  velocities  of  it  expend 
themselves,  was  nowhere  to  be  met  with.  A  son  of  light,  if  I 
have  ever  seen  one  ;  recognising  the  truth,  if  truth  there  were  ; 


i;o  JOHN  STERLING. 

hurling  overboard  his  vanities,  petulances,  big  and  small  inter- 
ests, in  ready  loyalty  to  truth  :  veiy  beautiful ;  at  once  a  loyal 
child,  as  I  said,  and  a  gifted  man  ! — Here  is  a  very  pertinent 
passage  from  one  of  his  Letters,  which,  though  the  name  con- 
tinues blank,  I  will  insert  : 

October  i$th,  1839  (To  his  Father}. — 'As  to  my  "over- 
4  estimate  of  -  — ,"  your  expressions  rather  puzzle  me.  I 
'  suppose  there  may  be,  at  the  outside,  a  hundred  persons  in 
'  England  whose  opinions  on  such  a  matter  are  worth  as  much 
'  as  mine.  If  by  "  the  public"  you  and  my  Mother  mean  the 
'  other  ninety-nine,  I  submit.  I  have  no  doubt  that,  on  any 
'  matter  not  relating  peculiarly  to  myself,  the  judgment  of  the 
'  ninety-nine  most  philosophical  heads  in  the  country,  if  unani- 
'  mous,  would  be  right,  and  mine,  if  opposed  to  them,  wrong. 
'  But  then  I  am  at  a  loss  to  make  out,  How  the  decision  of  the 
'  very  few  really  competent  persons  has  been  ascertained  to  be 
'  thus  in  contradiction  to  me  ?  And  on  the  other  hand,  I  con- 
'  ceive  myself,  from  my  opportunities,  knowledge  and  attention 
'  to  the  subject,  to  be  alone  quite  entitled  to  outvote  tens  of 
'  thousands  of  gentlemen,  however  much  niy  superiors  as  men 
'  of  business,  men  of  the  world,  or  men  of  merely  dry  or  merely 
'  frivolous  literature. 

'  I  do  not  remember  ever  before  to  have  heard  the  saying, 
'  whether  of  Talleyrand  or  of  any  one  else,  That  all  the  world 
'  is  a  wiser  man  than  any  man  in  the  world.  Had  it  been  said 
'  even  by  the  Devil,  it  would  nevertheless  be  false,  I  have 
'  often  indeed  heard  the  saying,  On  pent  etre  phis  FIN  qifttn 
'  autre,  mats  pas  plus  FIN  que  tons  les  autres.  But  observe 
'  that  "Jin"  means  cunning,  not  wise.  The  difference  between 
'  this  assertion  and  the  one  you  refer  to  is  curious  and  worth 
'  examining.  It  is  quite  certain,  there  is  always  some  one  man 
'  in  the  world  wiser  than  all  the  rest ;  as  Socrates  was  declared 
'  by  the  oracle  to  be ;  and  as,  I  suppose,  Bacon  was  in  his 
'  day,  and  perhaps  Burke  in  his.  There  is  also  some  one, 
'  whose  opinion  would  be  probably  true,  if  opposed  to  that  of 
'  all  around  him ;  and  it  is  always  indubitable  that  the  wise 
'  men  are  the  scores,  and  the  unwise  the  millions.  The  mil- 
'  lions  indeed  come  round,  in  the  course  of  a  generation  or 
'  two,  to  the  opinions  oi  the  wise  ;  but  by  that  time  a  new  race 
'  of  wise  men  have  again  shot  ahead  of  their  contemporaries  : 


CLIFTON.  171 

'  so  it  has  always  been,  and  so,  in  the  nature  of  things,  it 
'  always  must  be.  But  with  cunning,  the  matter  is  quite  dif- 
'  ferent.  Cunning  is  not  dishonest  'wisdom,  which  would  be  a 
'  contradiction  in  terms  ;  it  is  dishonest  prudence,  acuteness  in 
'  practice,  not  in  thought  :  and  though  there  must  always  be 
'  some  one  the  most  cunning  in  the  world,  as  well  as  some  one 
'  the  most  wise,  these  two  superlatives  will  fare  very  differently 
'  in  the  world.  In  the  case  of  cunning,  the  shrewdness  of  a 
•  whole  people,  of  a  whole  generation,  may  doubtless  be  com- 
'  bined  against  that  of  the  one,  and  so  triumph  over  it ;  which 
'  was  pretty  much  the  case  with  Napoleon.  But  although  a 
'  man  of  the  greatest  cunning  can  hardly  conceal  his  designs 
'  and  true  character  from  millions  of  unfriendly  eyes,  it  is  quite 
'  impossible  thus  to  club  the  eyes  of  the  mind,  and  to  consti- 
'  tute  by  the  union  of  ten  thousand  follies  an  equivalent  for  a 
'  single  wisdom.  A  hundred  schoolboys  can  easily  unite  and 
'  thrash  their  one  master  ;  but  a  hundred  thousand  school- 
'  boys  would  not  be  nearer  than  a  score  to  knowing  as  much 
'  Greek  among  them  as  Bentley  or  Scaliger.  To  all  which,  I  bc- 
'  lieve,  you  will  assent  as  readily  as  I  ; — and  I  have  written  it 
'  down  only  because  I  have  nothing  more  important  to  say.' — 

Besides  his  prose  labours,  Sterling  had  by  this  time  written, 
publishing  chiefly  in  Blackivood,  a  large  assortment  of  verses, 
Sexton's  Daughter,  Hymns  of  a  Hennit,  and  I  know  not  what 
other  extensive  stock  of  pieces  ;  concerning  which  he  was  now 
somewhat  at  a  loss  as  to  his  true  course.  He  could  write  verses 
with  astonishing  facility,  in  any  given  form  of  metre  ;  and  to 
various  readers  they  seemed  excellent,  and  high  judges  had 
freely  called  them  so,  but  he  himself  had  grave  misgivings  on 
that  latter  essential  point.  In  fact  here  once  more  was  a  part- 
ing of  the  ways,  "Write  in  Poetry;  write  in  Prose?"  upon  which, 
before  all  else,  it  much  concerned  him  to  come  to  a  settlement. 

My  own  advice  was,  as  it  had  always  been,  steady  against 
Poetry;  and  we  had  colloquies  upon  it,  which  must  have  tried 
his  patience,  for  in  him  there  was  a  strong  leaning  the  other 
way.  But,  as  I  remarked  and  urged  :  Had  he  not  already 
gained  superior  excellence  in  delivering,  by  way  of  speech  or 
prose,  what  thoughts  were  in  him,  which  is  the  grand  and  only 
intrinsic  umction  of  a  writing  man,  call  him  by  what  title  you 


172  JOHN  STERLING. 

will  ?  Cultivate  that  superior  excellence  till  it  become  a  per- 
fect and  superlative  one.  Why  sing  your  bits  of  thoughts,  if 
you  can  contrive  to  speak  them  ?  By  your  thought,  not  by 
your  mode  of  delivering  it,  you  must  live  or  die. — Besides  I 
had  to  observe  there  was  in  Sterling  intrinsically  no  depth  of 
tune j  which  surely  is  the  real  test  of  a  Poet  or  Singer,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  Speaker  ?  In  music  proper  he  had  not  the 
slightest  ear ;  all  music  was  mere  impertinent  noise  to  him, 
nothing  in  it  perceptible  but  the  mere  march  or  time.  Nor  in 
his  way  of  conception  and  utterance,  in  the  verses  he  wrote, 
was  there  any  contradiction,  but  a  constant  confirmation  to 
me,  of  that  fatal  prognostic ; — as  indeed  the  whole  man,  in  ear 
and  heart  and  tongue,  is  one ;  and  he  whose  soul  does  not  sing, 
need  not  try  to  do  it  with  his  throat.  Sterling's  verses  had  a 
monotonous  rub-a-dub,  instead  of  tune;  no  trace  of  music  deeper 
than  that  of  a  well-beaten  drum ;  to  which  limited  range  of  ex- 
cellence the  substance  also  corresponded  ;  being  intrinsically 
always  a  rhymed  and  slightly  rhythmical  speech,  not  a  song. 

In  short,  all  seemed  to  me  to  say,  in  his  case  :  "You  can 
"  speak  with  supreme  excellence ;  sing  with  considerable  excel- 
"  lence  you  never  can.  And  the  Age  itself,  does  it  not,  beyond 
"  most  ages,  demand  and  require  clear  speech  ;  an  Age  in- 
"  capable  of  being  sung  to,  in  any  but  a  trivial  manner,  till 
"  these  convulsive  agonies  and  wild  revolutionary  overturnings 
"  readjust  themselves  ?  Intelligible  word  of  command,  not 
"  musical  psalmody  and  fiddling,  is  possible  in  this  fell  storm 
"  of  battle.  Beyond  all  ages,  our  Age  admonishes  whatsoever 
"  thinking  or  writing  man  it  has  :  O,  speak  to  me  some  wise 
"  intelligible  speech  ;  your  wise  meaning  in  the  shortest  and 
"  clearest  way;  behold  I  am  dying  for  want  of  wise  meaning, 
"  and  insight  into  the  devouring  fact  :  speak,  if  you  have  any 
"  wisdom  !  As  to  song  so-called,  and  your  fiddling  talent, — 
"  even  if  you  have  one,  much  more  if  you  have  none, — we  will 
"  talk  of  that  a  couple  of  centuries  hence,  when  things  are 
"  calmer  again.  Homer  shall  be  thrice  welcome  ;  but  only 
"  when  Troy  is  taken  :  alas,  while  the  siege  lasts,  and  battle's 
"  fury  rages  eveiy where,  what  can  I  do  with  the  Homer?  I 
"  want  Achilleus  and  Odysseus,  and  am  enraged  to  see  them 
"  trying  to  be  Homers  !"— 

Sterling,  who  respected  my  sincerity,  and  always  was  amen- 


CLIFTON.  173 

able  enough  to  counsel,  was  doubtless  much  confused  by  such 
contradictory  diagnosis  of  his  case.  The  question,  Poetry  or 
Prose  ?  became  more  and  more  pressing,  more  and  more  in- 
soluble. He  decided,  at  last,  to  appeal  to  the  public  upon  it ; 
— got  ready,  in  the  late  autumn,  a  small  select  Volume  of  his 
verses  ;  and  was  now  busy  pushing  it  through  the  press.  Un- 
fortunately, in  the  mean  while,  a  grave  illness,  of  the  old  pul- 
monary sort,  overtook  him,  which  at  one  time  threatened  to  be 
dangerous.  This  is  a  glance  again-  into  his  interior  household 
in  these  circumstances  : 

December  2\st,  1 839  ( To  his  Mother]. — '  The  Tin-box  came 
'  quite  safe,  with  all  its  miscellaneous  contents.  I  suppose  we 
'  arc  to  thank  you  for  the  Comic  Almanack,  which,  as  usual,  is 
'  very  amusing ;  and  for  the  Book  on  Watt,  which  disappointed 
'  me.  The  scientific  part  is  no  doubt  very  good,  and  particu- 
'  larly  clear  and  simple;  but  there  is  nothing  remarkable  in  the 
'  account  of  Watt's  character  ;  and  it  is  an  absurd  piece  of 
'  French  impertinence  in  Arago  to  say,  that  England  has  not 
'  yet  learnt  to  appreciate  men  like  Watt,  because  he  was  not 
'  made  a  peer ;  which,  were  our  peerage  an  institution  like  that 
'  of  France,  would  have  been  very  proper. 

'  I  have  now  finished  correcting  the  proofs  of  my  little 
1  Volume  of  Poems.  It  has  been  a  great  plague  to  me,  and  one 
'  that  I  would  not  have  incurred,  had  I  expected  to  be  laid-up 
'  as  I  have  been  ;  but  the  matter  was  begun  before  I  had  any 
'  notion  of  being  disabled  by  such  an  illness, — the  severest  I 
'  have  suffered  since  I  went  to  the  West  Indies.  The  Book 
'  will,  after  all,  be  a  botched  business  in  many  respects  ;  and  I 
'  much  doubt  whether  it  will  pay  its  expenses :  but  I  try  to  con- 
'  sider  it  as  out  of  my  hands,  and  not  to  fret  myself  about  it. 
'  I  shall  be  very  curious  to  see  Carlyle's  Tractate  on  Chartism; 
'  which' — But  we  need  not  enter  upon  that. 

Sterling's  little  Book  was  printed  at  his  own  expense  ;3  pub- 
lished by  Moxon  in  the  very  end  of  this  year.  It  carries  an 
appropriate  and  pretty  Epigraph  : 

'  Feeling,  Thought,  and  Fancy  be 

Gentle  sister  Graces  three : 
If  these  prove  averse  to  me, 

They  will  punish, — pardon  Yc ! ' 

*  Poems  by  John  Sterling.   London  (Moxon),  1839. 


174  JOHN  STERLING. 

He  had  dedicated  the  little  Volume  to  Mr.  Hare; — and  he  sub- 
mitted very  patiently  to  the  discouraging  neglect  with  which  it 
was  received  by  the  world  ;  for  indeed  the  '  Ye'  said  nothing 
audible,  in  the  way  of  pardon  or  other  doom  ;  so  that  whether 
the  '  sister  Graces'  were  averse  or  not,  "remained  as  doubtful 
as  ever. 


CHAPTER  II. 

TWO  WINTERS. 

As  we  said  above,  it  had  been  hoped  by  Sterling's  friends, 
not  very  confidently  by  himself,  that  in  the  gentler  air  of  Clifton 
his  health  might  so  far  recover  as  to  enable  him  to  dispense 
with  autumnal  voyages,  and  to  spend  the  year  all  round  in  a 
house  of  his  own.  These  hopes,  favourable  while  the  warm 
season  lasted,  broke-down  when  winter  came.  In  November 
of  this  same  year,  while  his  little  Volume  was  passing  through 
the  press,  bad  and  worse  symptoms,  spitting  of  blood  to  crown 
the  sad  list,  reappeared ;  and  Sterling  had  to  equip  himself  again, 
at  this  late  season,  tor  a  new  flight  to  Madeira  ;  wherein  the 
good  Calvert,  himself  suffering,  and  ready  on  all  grounds  for 
such  an  adventure,  offered  to  accompany  him.  Sterling  went 
by  land  to  Falmouth,  meaning  there  to  wait  for  Calvert,  who  was 
to  come  by  the  Madeira  Packet,  and  there  take  him  on  board. 

Calvert  and  the  Packet  did  arrive,  in  stormy  January  weather ; 
which  continued  wildly  blowing  for  weeks ;  forbidding  all  egress 
Westward,  especially  for  invalids.  These  elemental  tumults, 
and  blustering  wars  of  sea  and  sky,  with  nothing  but  the  misty 
solitude  of  Madeira  in  the  distance,  formed  a  very  discouraging 
outlook.  In  the  mean  while  Falmouth  itself  had  offered  so 
many  resources,  and  seemed  so  tolerable  in  climate  and  other- 
wise, while  this  wintry  ocean  looked  so  inhospitable  for  invalids, 
it  was  resolved  our  voyagers  should  stay  where  they  were  till 
spring  returned.  Which  accordingly  was  done ;  with  good 
effect  for  that  season,  and  also  with  results  for  the  coming  sea- 
sons. Here  again,  from  Letters  to  Knightsbridge,  are  some 
glimpses  of  his  winter-life  : 

Falmouth,  February  $tht  1 840. — '  I  have  been  today  to  see 
'  a  new  tin-mine,  two  or  three  miles  off,  which  is  expected  to 


TWO  WINTERS.  175 

'  turn  into  a  copper-mine  by  and  by,  so  they  will  have  the  two 
'  constituents  of  bronze  close  together.  This,  by  the  way,  was 
'  the  "brass"  of  Homer  and  the  Ancients  generally,  who  do 
'  not  seem  to  have  known  our  brass  made  of  copper  and  zinc. 
'  Achilles  in  his  armour  must  have  looked  like  a  bronze  statue. 
'  — I  took  Sheridan's  advice,  and  did  not  go  down  the  mine.' 

February  \^th. — '  To  some  iron-works  the  other  day;  where 
'  I  saw  half  the  beam  of  a  great  steam-engine,  a  piece  of  iron 
'  forty  feet  long  and  seven  broad,  cast  in  about  five  minutes. 
'  It  was  a  very  striking  spectacle.  I  hope  to  go  to  Penzance 
'  before  I  leave  this  country,  and  will  not  fail  to  tell  you  about 
'  it.' — He  did  make  trial  of  Penzance,  among  other  places,  next 
year  ;  but  only  of  Falmouth  this. 

February  2o//z. — '  I  am  going  on  asy  here,  in  spite  of  a  great 
'  change  of  weather.  The  East  winds  are  come  at  last,  bring- 
'  ing  with  them  snow,  which  has  been  driving  about  for  the 
'  last  twenty-four  hours  ;  not  falling  heavily,  nor  lying  long 
'  when  fallen.  Neither  is  it  as  yet  very  cold,  but  I  suppose 
'  there  will  be  some  six  weeks  of  unpleasant  temperature.  The 
'  marine  climate  of  this  part  of  England  will,  no  doubt,  modify 
'  and  mollify  the  air  into  a  happier  sort  of  substance  than  that 
'  you  breathe  in  London. 

'  The  large  vessels  that  had  been  lying  here  for  weeks,  wait- 
'  ing  for  a  wind,  have  now  sailed  ;  two  of  them  for  the  East 
'  Indies,  and  having  three  hundred  soldiers  on  board.  It  is  a 
'  curious  thing  that  the  long-continued  westerly  winds  had  so 
'  prevented  the  coasters  arriving,  that  the  Town  was  almost  on 
'  the  point  of  a  famine  as  to  bread.  The  change  has  brought 
'  in  abundance  of  flour. — The  people  in  general  seem  extremely 
'  comfortable  ;  their  houses  arc  excellent,  almost  all  of  stone. 
'  Their  habits  are  very  little  agricultural,  but  mining  and  fishing 
'  seem  to  prosper  with  them.  There  are  hardly  any  gentry  here ; 
'  I  have  not  seen  more  than  two  gentlemen's  carriages  in  the 
'  Town ;  indeed  I  think  the  nearest  one  comes  from  five  miles  off.' 

'  I  have  been  obliged  to  try  to  occupy  myself  with  Natural 
'  Science,  in  order  to  give  some  interest  to  my  walks;  and  have 
'  begun  to  feel  my  way  in  Geology.  I  have  now  learnt  to  recog- 
'  nise  three  or  four  of  the  common  kinds  of  stone  about  here, 
'  when  I  see  them  ;  but  I  find  it  stupid  work  compared  with 
'  Poetiy  and  Philosophy.  In  the  mornings,  however,  for  an  hour 


176  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  or  so  before  I  get  up,  I  generally  light  my  candle,  and  try  to 
'  write  some  verses  ;  and  since  I  have  been  here,  1  have  put 
'  together  short  poems,  almost  enough  for  another  small  volume. 
'  In  the  evenings  I  have  gone  on  translating  some  of  Goethe. 
'  But  six  or  seven  hours  spent  on  my  legs,  in  the  open  air,  do 
1  not  leave  my  brain  much  energy  for  thinking.  Thus  my  life 
'  is  a  dull  and  unprofitable  one,  but  still  better  than  it  would 
'  have  been  in  Madeira  or  on  board  ship.  I  hear  from  Susan 
'  every  day,  and  write  to  her  by  return  of  post.' 

At  Falmouth  Sterling  had  been  warmly  welcomed  by  the 
well-known  Quaker  family  of  the  Foxes,  principal  people  in  that 
place,  persons  of  cultivated  opulent  habits,  and  joining  to  the 
fine  purities  and  pieties  of  their  sect  a  reverence  for  human  in- 
telligence in  all  kinds  ;  to  whom  such  a  visitor  as  Sterling  was 
naturally  a  welcome  windfall.  The  family  had  grave  elders, 
bright  cheery  younger  branches,  men  and  women ;  truly  amiable 
all,  after  their  sort :  they  made  a  pleasant  image  of  home  for 
Sterling  in  his  winter  exile.  '  Most  worthy,  respectable  and 
'  highly  cultivated  people,  with  a  great  deal  of  money  among 
'  them,'  writes  Sterling  in  the  end  of  February;  'who  make  the 
'  place  pleasant  to  me.  They  are  connected  with  all  the  large 
'  Quaker  circle,  the  Gurneys,  Frys,  &c.,  and  also  with  Buxton 
'  the  Abolitionist.  It  is  droll  to  hear  them  talking  of  all  the 
'  common  topics  of  science,  literature  and  life,  and  in  the  midst 
'  of  it:  "  Does  thou  know  Wordsworth?"  or,  "  Did  thou  see  the 
'  Coronation?"  or  "Will  thou  take  some  refreshment?"  They 
'  are  very  kind  and  pleasant  people  to  know. 

'Calvert,'  continues  our  Diarist,  'is  better  than  he  lately 
'  was,  though  he  has  not  been  at  all  laid-up.  He  shoots  little 
'  birds,  and  dissects  and  stuffs  them ;  while  I  carry  a  hammer, 
'  and  break  flints  and  slates,  to  look  for  diamonds  and  rubies 
'  ins.ide  ;  and  admire  my  success  in  the  evening,  when  I  empty 
'  my  greatcoat  pocket  of  its  specimens.  On  the  whole,  I  doubt 
'  whether  my  physical  proceedings  will  set  the  Thames  on  fire. 
'  Give  my  love  to  Anthony's  Charlotte ;  also  remember  me 
'  affectionately  to  the  Carlyles.' — 

At  this  time,  too,  John  Mill,  probably  encouraged  by  Ster- 
ling, arrived  in  Falmouth,  seeking  refuge  of  climate  for  a  sickly 
younger  Brother,  to  whom  also,  while  he  continued  there,  and 
to  his  poor  patient,  the  doors  and  hearts  of  this  kind  family 


TWO  WINTERS.  177 

were  thrown  wide  open.  Falmouth,  during  these  winter  weeks, 
especially  while  Mill  continued,  was  an  unexpectedly  engaging 
place  to  Sterling  ;  and  he  left  it  in  spring,  for  Clifton,  with  a 
very  kindly  image  of  it  in  his  thoughts.  So  ended,  better  than 
it  might  have  done,  his  first  year's  flight  from  the  Clifton  winter. 

In  April  1 840  he  was  at  his  own  hearth  again  ;  cheerily 
pursuing  his  old  labours, — struggling  to  redeem,  as  he  did  with 
a  gallant  constancy,  the  available  months  and  days,  out  of  the 
wreck  of  so  many  that  were  unavailable,  for  the  business  allotted 
him  in  this  world.  His  swift,  decisive  energy  of  character  ;  the 
valiant  rally  he  made  again  and  ever  again,  starting  up  fresh 
from  amid  the  wounded,  and  cheerily  storming-in  anew,  was 
admirable,  and  showed  a  noble  fund  of  natural  health  amid  such 
an  clement  of  disease.  Somehow  one  could  never  rightly  fancy 
that  he  was  diseased  ;  that  those  fatal  ever-recurring  downbreaks 
were  not  almost  rather  the  penalties  paid  for  exuberance  of 
health,  and  of  faculty  for  living  and  working  ;  criminal  forfeit- 
ures, incurred  by  excess  of  self-exertion  and  such  irrepressible 
over-rapidity  of  movement  :  and  the  vague  hope  was  habitual 
with  us,  that  increase  of  years,  as  it  deadened  this  over-energy, 
would  first  make  the  man  secure  of  life,  and  a  sober  prosperous 
worker  among  his  fellows.  It  was  always  as  if  with  a  kind  of 
blame  that  one  heard  of  his  being  ill  again  !  Poor  Sterling  ; — 
no  man  knows  another's  burden  :  these  things  were  not,  and 
were  not  to  be,  in  the  way  we  had  fancied  them  ! 

Summer  went  along  in  its  usual  quiet  tenor  at  Clifton  ;  health 
good,  as  usual  while  the  warm  weather  lasted,  and  activity 
abundant ;  the  scene  as  still  as  the  busiest  could  wish.  '  You 
'  metropolitan  signers,'  writes  Sterling  to  his  Father,  'cannot 
'  conceive  the  dulness  and  scantiness  of  our  provincial  chronicle.' 
Here  is  a  little  excursion  to  the  seaside  ;  the  lady  of  the  family 
being  again, — for  good  reasons, — in  a  weakly  state  : 

'  To  Edward  Sterling,  Esq.,  Knightsbridge,  London. 

'  Portshead,  Bristol,  ist  Sept.  1840. 

'  MY  DEAR  FATHER, — -This  place  is  a  southern  headland  at 
'  the  mouth  of  the  Avon.  Susan,  and  the  Children  too,  were 
'  all  suffering  from  languor  ;  and  as  she  is  quite  unfit  to  travel 
'  in  a  carriage/  we  were  obliged  to  move,  if  at  all,  to  some  place 

N 


178  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  accessible  by  water ;  and  this  is  the  nearest  where  we  could 
'  get  the  fresher  air  of  the  Bristol  Channel.  We  sent  to  take  a 
'  house,  for  a  week  ;  and  came  down  here  in  a  steamer  yester- 
'  day  morning.  It  seems  likely  to  do  every  one  good.  We  have 
'  a  comfortable  house,  with  eight  rather  small  bedrooms,  for 
'  which  we  pay  four  guineas  and  a  half  for  the  week.  We  have 
'  brought  three  of  our  own  maids,  and  leave  one  to  take  care  of 
'  the  house  at  Clifton. 

'  A  week  ago  my  horse  fell  with  me,  but  did  not  hurt  seri- 
'  ously  either  himself  or  me  :  it  was,  however,  rather  hard  that, 
'  as  there  were  six  legs  to  be  damaged,  the  one  that  did  scratch 
1  itself  should  belong  to  the  part  of  the  machine  possessing  only 
'  two,  instead  of  the  quadrupedal  portion.  I  grazed  about  the 
'  size  of  a  halfpenny  on  my  left  knee  ;  and  for  a  couple  of  days 
'  walked  about  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  I  found,  however, 
'  that  the  skin  was  not  returning  correctly  ;  and  so  sent  for  a 
'  doctor  :  he  treated  the  thing  as  quite  insignificant,  but  said  I 
'  must  keep  my  leg  quiet  for  a  few  days.  It  is  still  not  quite 
'  healed  ;  and  I  lie  all  day  on  a  sofa,  much  to  my  discomposure ; 
'  but  the  thing  is  now  rapidly  disappearing  ;  and  I  hope,  in  a 
'  day  or  two  more,  I  shall  be  free  again.  I  find  I  can  do  no 
'  work,  while  thus  crippled  in  my  leg.  The  man  in  Horace  who 
'  made  verses  stans  pede  in  uno  had  the  advantage  of  me. 

'  The  Great  Western  came-in  last  night  about  eleven,  and 
'  has  just  been  making  a  flourish  past  our  windows  ;  looking 
'  very  grand,  with  four  streamers  of  bunting,  and  one  of  smoke. 
'  Of  course  I  do  not  yet  know  whether  I  have  Letters  by  her, 
'  as  if  so  they  will  have  gone  to  Clifton  first.  This  place  is  quiet, 
'  green  and  pleasant ;  and  will  suit  us  very  well,  if  we  have  good 
'  weather,  of  which  there  seems  every  appearance. 

'  Milnes  spent  last  Sunday  with  me  at  Clifton  ;  and  was  very 
1  amusing  and  cordial.  It  is  impossible  for  those  who  know  him 
'  well  not  to  like  him. — I  send  this  to  Knightsbridge,  not  know- 
'  ing  where  else  to  hit  you.  Love  to  my  Mother. — Your  affec- 
'  donate,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

The  expected  '  Letters  by  the  Great  Western'  are  from  An- 
thony, now  in  Canada,  doing  military  duties  there.  The  '  Milnes' 
is  our  excellent  Richard,  whom  all  men  know,  and  truly  whom 
none  can  know  well  without  even  doing  as  Sterling  says. — In 


TWO  WINTERS.  179 

a  week  the  family  had  returned  to  Clifton  ;  and  Sterling  was  at 
his  poetisings  and  equitations  again.  His  gfand  business  was 
now  Poetry  ;  all  effort,  outlook  and  aim  exclusively  directed 
thither,  this  good  while. 

Of  the  published  Volume  Moxon  gave  the  worst  tidings  ;  no 
man  had  hailed  it  with  welcome  ;  unsold  it  lay,  under  the  leaden 
seal  of  general  neglect ;  the  public  when  asked  what  it  thought, 
had  answered  hitherto  by  a  lazy  stare.  It  shall  answer  other- 
wise, thought  Sterling ;  by  no  means  taking  that  as  the  final 
response.  It  was  in  this  same  September  that  he  announced  to 
me  and  other  friends,  under  seal  of  secrecy  as  usual,  the  com- 
pletion, or  complete  first-draught  of  "a  new  Poem  reaching  to 
two  thousand  verses."  By  working  'three  hours  every  morning' 
he  had  brought  it  so  far.  This  Piece,  entitled  The  Election,  of 
which  in  due  time  we  obtained  perusal,  and  had  to  give  some 
judgment,  proved  to  be  in  a  new  vein, — what  might  be  called 
the  mock-heroic,  or  sentimental  Hudibrastic,  reminding  one  a 
little,  too,  of  Wieland's  Oberon; — it  had  touches  of  true  drollery 
combined  not  ill  with  grave  clear  insight ;  showed  spirit  every- 
where, and  a  plainly  improved  power  of  execution.  Our  stingy 
verdict  was  to  the  effect,  "  Better,  but  still  not  good  enough  : — 
"  why  follow  that  sad  '  metrical'  course,  climbing  the  loose  sand- 
"  hills,  when  you  have  a  firm  path  along  the  plain  ?"  To  Ster- 
ling himself  it  remained  dubious  whether  so  slight  a  strain,  new 
though  it  were,  would  suffice  to  awaken  the  sleeping  public ;  and 
the  Piece  was  thrown  away  and  taken  up  again,  at  intervals  ; 
and  the  question,  Publish  or  not  publish  ?  lay  many  months 
undecided. 

Meanwhile  his  own  feeling  was  now  set  more  and  more  to- 
wards Poetry  ;  and  in  spite  of  symptoms  and  dissuasions,  and 
perverse  prognostics  of  outward  wind  and  weather,  he  was  rally- 
ing all  his  force  for  a  downright  struggle  with  it ;  resolute  to 
see  which  u>as  the  stronger.  It  must  be  owned,  he  takes  his 
failures  in  the  kindliest  manner  ;  and  goes  along,  bating  no 
jot  of  heart  or  hope.  Perhaps  I  should  have  more  admired  this 
than  I  did!  My  dissuasions,  in  that  case,  might  have  been 
fainter.  But  then  my  sincerity,  which  was  all  the  use  of  my 
poor  counsel  in  assent  or  dissent,  would  have  been  less.  He 
was  now  furthermore  busy  with  a  Tragedy  of  Straffordt  the  theme 
of  many  failures  in  Tragedy ;  planning  it  industriously  in  his 


i8o  JOHN  STERLING. 

head  ;  eagerly  reading  in  Whitlocke,  Rushworth  and  the  Puritan 
Books,  to  attain  a  vesture  and  local  habitation  for  it.  Faithful 
assiduous  studies  I  do  believe  ; — of  which,  knowing  my  stubborn 
realism,  and  savage  humour  towards  singing  by  the  Thespian  or 
other  methods,  he  told  me  little,  during  his  visits  that  summer. 

The  advance  of  the  dark  weather  sent  him  adrift  again  ;  to 
Torquay,  for  this  winter  :  there,  in  his  old  Falmouth  climate, 
he  hoped  to  do  well ; — and  did,  so  far  as  welldoing  was  readily 
possible,  in  that  sad  wandering  way  of  life.  However,  be  where 
he  may,  he  tries  to  work  '  two  or  three  hours  in  the  morning,' 
were  it  even  'with  a  lamp,'  in  bed,  before  the  fires  are  lit;  and 
so  makes  something  of  it.  From  abundant  Letters  of  his  now 
before  me,  I  glean  these  two  or  three  small  glimpses  ;  sufficient 
for  our  purpose  at  present.  The  general  date  is  '  Tor,  near 
Torquay :' 

Tor,  November  30^,  1 840  ( To  Mrs,  Charles  Fox,  Falmouth}. 
— '  I  reached  this  place  on  Thursday  ;  having,  after  much  hesi- 
'  tation,  resolved  to  come  here,  at  least  for  the  next  three  weeks, 
'  — with.some  obscure  purpose  of  embarking  at  the  New  Year, 
'  from  Falmouth  for  Malta,  and  so  reaching  Naples,  which  I 
'  have  not  seen.  There  was  also  a  doubt  whether  I  should  not, 
'  after  Christmas,  bring  my  family  here  for  the  first  four  months 
'  of  the  year.  All  this,  however,  is  still  doubtful.  But  for  certain 
'  inhabitants  of  Falmouth  and  its  neighbourhood,  this  place 
'  would  be  far  more  attractive  than  it.  But  I  have  here  also 
'  friends,  whose  kindness,  like  much  that  I  met  with  last  winter, 
'  perpetually  makes  me  wonder  at  the  stock  of  benignity  in 
'  human  nature.  A  brother  of  my  friend  Julius  Hare,  Marcus 
'  by  name,  a  Naval  man,  and  though  not  a  man  of  letters,  full 
'  of  sense  and  knowledge,  lives  here  in  a  beautiful  place,  with  a 
'  most  agreeable  and  excellent  wife,  a  daughter  of  Lord  Stanley 
'  of  Alderley.  I  had  hardly  seen  them  before  ;  but  they  are  fra- 
'  ternising  with  me,  in  a  much  better  than  the  Jacobin  fashion  ; 
'  and  one  only  feels  ashamed  at  the  enormity  of  some  people's 
'  good-nature.  I  am  in  a  little  rural  sort  of  lodging ;  and  as 
'  comfortable  as  a  solitary  oyster  can  expect  to  be.'— 

December  ^th  (To  C.  Barton}.  —  'This  place  is  extremely 
'  small,  much  more  so  than  Falmouth  even  ;  but  pretty,  cheerful, 
'  and  very  mild  in  climate.  There  are  a  great  many  villas  in 


TWO  WINTERS.  181 

'  and  about  the  little  Town,  having  three  or  four  reccption- 
1  rooms,  eight  or  ten  bedrooms  ;  and  costing  about  fifteen  hun- 
'  dred  or  two  thousand  pounds  each,  and  occupied  by  persons 
'  spending  a  thousand  or  more  pounds  a-year.  If  the  Country 
'  would  acknowledge  my  merits  by  the  gift  of  one  of  these,  I 
'  could  prevail  on  myself  to  come  and  live  here  ;  which  would 
1  be  the  best  move  for  my  health  I  could  make  in  England  ;  but, 
'  in  the  absence  of  any  such  expression  of  public  feeling,  it  would 
'  come  rather  dear.' — 

December  22^  (To  Mrs.  Fox:  again). — '  By  the  way,  did  you 
'  ever  read  a  Novel  ?  If  you  ever  mean  to  do  so  hereafter,  let 
'  it  be  Miss  Martineau's  Deerbrook.  It  is  really  very  striking  ; 
'  and  parts  of  it  are  very  true  and  very  beautiful.  It  is  not  so 
'  true,  or  so  thoroughly  clear  and  harmonious,  among  delinea- 
'  tions  of  English  middle-class  gentility,  as  Miss  Austin's  books, 
'  especially  as  Pride  and  Prejudice,  which  I  think  exquisite  ;  but 
1  it  is  worth  reading.  The  Hour  and  the  Man  is  eloquent,  but 
'  an  absurd  exaggeration. — I  hold  out  so  valorously  against  this 
'  Scandinavian  weather,  that  I  deserve  to  be  ranked  with  Odin 
'  and  Thor,  and  fancy  I  may  go  to  live  at  Clifton  or  Drontheim. 
'  Have  you  had  the  same  icy  desolation  as  prevails  here  ?' 

December  2%th  (To  W.  Coningham,  Esq.). — 'Looking  back 
'  to  him'  (a  deceased  Uncle,  father  of  his  correspondent),  '  as 
'  I  now  very  often  do,  I  feel  strongly,  what  the  loss  of  other 
'  friends  has  also  impressed  on  me,  how  much  Death  deepens 
'  our  affection  ;  and  sharpens  our  regret  for  whatever  has  been 
'  even  slightly  amiss  in  our  conduct  towards  those  who  are 
'  gone.  What  trifles  then  swell  into  painful  importance  ;  how 
'  we  believe  that,  could  the  past  be  recalled,  life  would  present 
'  no  worthier,  happier  task,  than  that  of  so  bearing  ourselves 
'  towards  those  we  love,  that  we  might  ever  after  find  nothing 
'  but  melodious  tranquillity  breathing  about  their  graves  !  Yet, 
'  too  often,  I  feel  the  difficulty  of  always  practising  such  mild 
'  wisdom  towards  those  who  are  still  left  me. — You  will  wonder 
'  less  at  my  rambling  off  in  this  way,  when  I  tell  you  that  my 
'  little  lodging  is  close  to  a  picturesque  old  Church  and  Church- 
'  yard,  where,  every  day,  I  brush  past  a  tombstone,  recording 
'  that  an  Italian,  of  Manferrato,  has  buried  there  a  girl  of  six- 
'  teen,  his  only  daughter  :  "  L'  unica  speransa  di  mi  a  vita." — 
'  No  doubt,  as  you  say,  our  Mechanical  Age  is  necessary  as  a 


182  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  passage  to  something  better  ;  but,  at  least,  do  not  let  us  go 
'  back.' — 

At  the  New-year  time,  feeling  unusually  well,  he  returns  to 
Clifton.  His  plans,  of  course,  were  ever  fluctuating  ;  his  move- 
ments were  swift  and  uncertain.  Alas,  his  whole  life,  especially 
his  winter-life,  had  to  be  built  as  if  on  wavering  drift-sand ;  no- 
thing certain  in  it,  except  if  possible  the  '  two  or  three  hours  of 
work'  snatched  from  the  general  whirlpool  of  the  dubious  four- 
and-twenty  ! 

Clifton,  January  loth,  1841  (To  Dr.  Carlyle]. — 'I  stood 
'  the  sharp  frost  at  Torquay  with  such  entire  impunity,  that  at 
'  last  I  took  courage,  and  resolved  to  return  home.  I  have  been 
'  here  a  week,  in  extreme  cold  ;  and  have  suffered  not  at  all ; 
'  so  that  I  hope,  with  care  I  may  prosper  in  spite  of  medical 
'  prognostics, — if  you  permit  such  profane  language.  I  am  even 
'  able  to  work  a  good  deal  ;  and  write  for  some  hours  every 
'  morning,  by  dint  of  getting  up  early,  which  an  Arnott-stove 
'  in  my  study  enables  me  to  do.' — But  at  Clifton  he  cannot 
continue.  Again,  before  long,  the  rude  weather  has  driven  him 
Southward  ;  the  spring  finds  him  in  his  former  haunts  ;  doubt- 
ful as  ever  what  to  decide  upon  for  the  future  ;  but  tending 
evidently  towards  a  new  change  of  residence  Tor  household  and 
self: 

Penzance,  April  igth,  1841  (To  W.  Coningham,  Esq.). — 
'  My  little  Boy  and  I  have  been  wandering  about  between  Tor- 
'  quay  and  this  place  ;  and  latterly  have  had  my  Father  for  a 
'  few  days  with  us, — he  left  us  yesterday.  In  all  probability  I 
'  shall  endeavour  to  settle  either  at  Torquay,  at  Falmouth,  or 
'  here  ;  as  it  is  pretty  clear  that  I  cannot  stand  the  sharp  air 
'  of  Clifton,  and  still  less  the  London  east  winds.  Penzance  is, 
'  on  the  whole,  a  pleasant-looking,  cheerful  place  ;  with  a  de- 
'  lightful  mildness  of  air,  and  a  great  appearance  of  comfort 
'  among  the  people  :  the  view  of  Mount's  Bay  is  certainly  a 
'  very  noble  one.  Torquay  would  suit  the  health  of  my  Wife 
'  and  Children  better  ;  or  else  I  should  be  glad  to  live  here 
'  always,  London  and  its  neighbourhood  being  impracticable.' 
— Such  was  his  second  wandering  winter ;  enough  to  render 
the  prospect  of  a  third  at  Clifton  very  uninviting. 

With  the  Falmouth  friends,  young  and  old,  his  intercourse 


FALMOUTH  :  POEMS.  183 

had  meanwhile  continued  cordial  and  frequent.  The  omens 
were  pointing  towards  that  region  as  his  next  place  of  abode. 
Accordingly,  in  few  weeks  hence,  in  the  June  of  this  Summer 
1841,  his  dubitations  and  inquirings  are  again  ended  for  a 
time  ;  he  has  fixed  upon  a  house  in  Falmouth,  and  removed 
thither  ;  bidding  Clifton,  and  the  regretful  Clifton  friends,  a 
kind  farewell.  This  was  the  fifth  change  of  place  for  his  family 
since  Bayswater  ;  the  fifth,  and  to  one  chief  member  of  it  the 
last.  Mrs.  Sterling  had  brought  him  a  new  child  in  October 
last ;  and  went  hopefully  to  Falmouth,  dreading  other  than  what 
befell  there. 


CHAPTER  III. 

FALMOUTH  :    POEMS. 

AT  Falmouth,  as  usual,  he  was  soon  at  home  in  his  new  en- 
vironment ;  resumed  his  labours  ;  had  his  new  small  circle  of 
acquaintance,  the  ready  and  constant  centre  of  which  was  the 
Fox  family,  with  whom  he  lived  on  an  altogether  intimate, 
honoured  and  beloved  footing  ;  realising  his  best  anticipations 
in  that  respect,  which  doubtless  were  among  his  first  induce- 
ments to  settle  in  this  new  place.  Open  cheery  heights,  rather 
bare  of  wood  ;  fresh  south-western  breezes  ;  a  brisk  laughing 
sea,  swept  by  industrious  sails,  and  the  nets  of  a  most  stalwart, 
wholesome,  frank  and  interesting  population  :  the  clean  little 
fishing,  trading  and  packet  Town  ;  hanging  on  its  slope  towards 
the  Eastern  sun,  close  on  the  waters  of  its  basin  and  intricate 
bay, — with  the  miniature  Pendennis  Castle  seaward  on  the  right, 
the  miniature  St.  Mawes  landward  to  left,  and  the  mining  world 
and  the  farming  world  open  boundlessly  to  the  rear  : — all  this 
made  a  pleasant  outlook  and  environment.  And  in  all  this,  as 
in  the  other  new  elements  of  his  position,  Sterling,  open  beyond 
most  men  to  the  worth  of  things  about  him,  took  his  frank  share. 
From  the  first,  he  had  liked  the  general  aspect  of  the  popula- 
tion, and  their  healthy,  lively  ways ;  not  to  speak  of  the  special 
friendships  he  had  formed  there,  which  shed  a  charm  over  them 
all.  '  Men  of  strong  character,  clear  heads  and  genuine  good- 
'  ness,'  writes  he,  '  are  by  no  means  wanting.'  And  long  after  : 
'  The  common  people  here  dress  better  than  in  most  parts  of 


1 84  JOHN  STERLING. 

•  England  ;  and  on  Sundays,  if  the  weather  be  at  all  fine,  their 

•  appearance  is  very  pleasant.      One  sees  them  all  round  the 
'  Town,  especially  towards  Pendennis  Castle,   streaming  in  a 
'  succession  of  little  groups,  and  seeming  for  the  most  part  really 
'  and  quietly  happy.'  On  the  whole  he  reckoned  himself  lucky; 
and,  so  far  as  locality  went,  found  this  a  handsome  shelter  for 
the  next  two  years  of  his  life.     Two  years,  and  not  without  an 
interruption  ;  that  was  all.      Here  we  have  no  continuing  city  ; 
he  less  than  any  of  us  !    One  other  flight  for  shelter;  and  then 
it  is  ended,  and  he  has  found  an  inexpugnable  refuge.      Let  us 
trace  his  remote  footsteps,  as  we  have  opportunity  : 

Falmouth,  June  28//J,  1841  (To  Dr.  Symonds,  Clifton}. — 
'  Newman  writes  to  me  that  he  is  gone  to  the  Rhine.  I  wish  I 
'  were  !  And  yet  the  only  "wish"  at  the  bottom  of  my  heart, 
'  is  to  be  able  to  work  vigorously  in  my  own  way  anywhere, 
'  were  it  in  some  Circle  of  Dante's  Inferno.  This,  however,  is 
'  the  secret  of  my  soul,  which  I  disclose  only  to  a  few.' 

Falmouth,  July  6th,  1841  (To  his  Mother). — 'I  have  at 
'  last  my  own  study  made  comfortable  ;  the  carpet  being  now 
'  laid  down,  and  most  of  my  appurtenances  in  tolerable  order. 
'  By  and  by  I  shall,  unless  stopped  by  illness,  get  myself  to- 
'  gether,  and  begin  living  an  orderly  life  and  doing  my  daily 
'  task.  I  have  swung  a  cot  in  my  dressing-room  ;  partly  as  a 
'  convenience  for  myself,  partly  as  a  sort  of  memorial  of  my 
'  poor  Uncle,  in  whose  cot  in  his  dressing-room  at  Lisworney 
'  I  remember  to  have  slept  when  a  child.  I  have  put  a  good 
'  large  bookcase  in  my  drawing-room,  and  all  the  rest  of  my 
'  books  fit  very  well  into  the  study.' 

Same  day  (To  myself}. — '  No  books  have  come  in  my  way 
'  but  Emerson's,  which  I  value  full  as  much  as  you,  though  as 
'  yet  I  have  read  only  some  corners  of  it.  We  have  had  an 
'  Election  here,  of  the  usual  stamp;  to  me  a  droll  "realised 
'  Ideal,"  after  my  late  metrical  adventures  in  that  line.  But 
'  the  oddest  sign  of  the  Times  I  know,  is  a  cheap  Translation 
'  of  Strauss's  Lcben  Jesu,  now  publishing  in  numbers,  and  said 
'  to  be  circulating  far  and  wide.  What  does, — or  rather,  what 
'  does  not, — this  portend  ?' — 

With  the  Poem  called  The  Election,  here  alluded  to,  which 
had  been  more  than  once  revised  and  reconsidered,  he  was  still 


FALMOUTH  :  POEMS.  185 

under  some  hesitations  ;  but  at  last  had  wellnigh  resolved,  as 
from  the  first  it  was  clear  he  would  do,  on  publishing  it.  This 
occupied  some  occasional  portion  of  his  thoughts.  But  his 
grand  private  affair,  I  believe,  was  now  Straffbrdj  to  which, 
or  to  its  adjuncts,  all  working  hours  were  devoted.  Sterling's 
notions  of  Tragedy  are  high  enough.  This  is  what  he  writes 
once,  in  reference  to  his  own  task  in  these  weeks  :  '  Few,  I 
'  fancy,  know  how  much  harder  it  is  to  write  a  Tragedy  than 
'  to  realise  or  be  one.  Every  man  has  in  his  heart  and  lot,  if 
'  he  pleases,  and  too  many  whether  they  please  or  no,  all  the 
'  woes  of  CEdipus  and  Antigone.  But  it  takes  the  One,  the 
'  Sophocles  of  a  thousand  years,  to  utter  these  in  the  full  depth 
'  and  harmony  of  creative  song.  Curious,  by  the  way,  how  that 
'  Dramatic  Form  of  the  old  Greek,  with  only  some  superficial 
'  changes,  remains  a  law  not  only  for  the  stage,  but  for  the 
'  thoughts  of  all  Poets  ;  and  what  a  charm  it  has  even  for  the 
'  reader  who  never  saw  a  theatre.  The  Greek  Plays  and  Shak- 
'  speare  have  interested  a  hundred  as  books,  for  one  who  has 
'  seen  their  writings  acted.  How  lightly  does  the  mere  clown, 
'  the  idle  school-girl,  build  a  private  theatre  in  the  fancy,  and 
•'  laugh  or  weep  with  Falstaff  and  Macbeth  :  with  how  entire 
'  an  oblivion  of  the  artificial  nature  of  the  whole  contrivance, 
1  which  thus  compels  them  to  be  their  own  architects,  machinists, 
'  scene-painters,  and  actors  !  In  fact,  the  artifice  succeeds, — 
'  becomes  grounded  in  the  substance  of  the  soul  :  and  every 
'  one  loves  to  feel  how  he  is  thus  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
'  brave,  the  fair,  the  woful  and  the  great  of  all  past  ages ;  looks 
'  into  their  eyes,  and  feels  the  beatings  of  their  hearts  ;  and 
'  reads,  over  the  shoulder,  the  secret  written  tablets  of  the 
'  busiest  and  the  largest  brains  ;  while  the  Juggler,  by  whose 
'  cunning  the  whole  strange  beautiful  absurdity  is  set  in  motion, 
'  keeps  himself  hidden  ;  sings  loud  with  a  mouth  unmoving  as 
'  that  of  a  statue,  and  makes  the  human  race  cheat  itself  unani- 
'  mously  and  delightfully  by  the  illusion  that  he  preordains  ; 
'  while  as  an  obscure  Fate,  he  sits  invisible,  and  hardly  lets  his 
'  being  be  divined  by  those  who  cannot  flee  him.  The  Lyric 
'  Art  is  childish,  and  the  Epic  barbarous,  compared  to  this. 
'  But  of  the  true  and  perfect  Drama  it  may  be  said,  as  of  even 
'  higher  mysteries,  Who  is  sufficient  for  these  things  ?' — On  this 
Tragedy  of  Slrqffbrd,  writing  it  and  again  writing  it,  studying 


186  JOHN  STERLING. 

for  it,  and  bending  himself  with  his  whole  strength  to  do  his 
best  on  it,  he  expended  many  strenuous  months, — '  above  a 
year  of  his  life,'  he  computes,  in  all. 

For  the  rest,  what  Falmouth  has  to  give  him  he  is  willing 
to  take,  and  mingles  freely  in  it.  In  Hare's  Collection  there  is 
given  a  Lecture  which  he  read  in  Autumn  1841  (Mr.  Hare  says 
'  1 842,'  by  mistake),  to  a  certain  Public  Institution  in  the  place, 
— of  which  more  anon; — a  piece  interesting  in  this,  if  not  much 
in  any  other  respect.  Doubtless  his  friends  the  Foxes  were  at 
the  heart  of  that  lecturing  enterprise,  and  had  urged  and  soli- 
cited him.  Something  like  proficiency  in  certain  branches  of 
science,  as  I  have  understood,  characterised  one  or  more  of  this 
estimable  family ;  love  of  knowledge,  taste  for  art,  wish  to  con- 
sort with  wisdom  and  wise  men,  were  the  tendencies  of  all  ;  to 
opulent  means  superadd  the  Quaker  beneficence,  Quaker  purity 
and  reverence,  there  is  a  circle  in  which  wise  men  also  may 
love  to  be.  Sterling  made  acquaintance  here  with  whatever  of 
notable  in  worthy  persons  or  things  might  be  afoot  in  those 
parts  ;  and  was  led  thereby,  now  and  then,  into  pleasant  re- 
unions, in  new  circles  of  activity,  which  might  otherwise  have 
continued  foreign  to  him.  The  good  Calvert,  too,  was  nowhere; 
and  intended  to  remain  ; — which  he  mostly  did  henceforth, 
lodging  in  Sterling's  neighbourhood,  so  long  as  lodging  in  this 
world  was  permitted  him.  Still  good  and  clear  and  cheerful ; 
still  a  lively  comrade,  within  doors  or  without, — a  diligent  rider 
always, — though  now  wearing  visibly  weaker,  and  less  able  to 
exert  himself. 

Among  those  accidental  Falmouth  reunions,  perhaps  the 
notablest  for  Sterling  occurred  in  this  his  first  season.  There 
is  in  Falmouth  an  Association  called  the  Cornwall  Polytechnic 
Society,  established  about  twenty  years  ago,  and  supported  by 
the  wealthy  people  of  the  Town  and  neighbourhood,  for  the  en- 
couragement of  the  arts  in  that  region  ;  it  has  its  Library,  its 
Museum,  some  kind  of  Annual  Exhibition  withal ;  gives  prizes, 
publishes  reports :  the  main  patrons,  I  believe,  are  Sir  Charles 
Lemon,  a  well-known  country  gentleman  of  those  parts,  and  the 
Messrs.  Fox.  To  this,  so  far  as  he  liked  to  go  in  it,  Sterling 
was  sure  to  be  introduced  and  solicited.  The  Polytechnic  meet- 
ing of  1841  was  unusually  distinguished;  and  Sterling's  part  in 
it  formed  one  of  the  pleasant  occurrences  for  him  in  Falmouth. 


FALMOUTH  :  POEMS.  187 

It  was  here  that,  among  other  profitable  as  well  as  pleasant 
things,  he  made  acquaintance  with  Professor  Owen  (an  event 
of  which  I  too  had  my  benefit  in  due  time,  and  still  have) :  the 
bigger  assemblage,  called  British  Association,  which  met  at 
Plymouth  this  year,  having  now  just  finished  its  affairs  there, 
Owen  and  other  distinguished  persons  had  taken  Falmouth  in 
their  route  from  it.  Sterling's  account  of  this  Polytechnic  gala 
still  remains, — in  three  Letters  to  his  Father,  which,  omitting 
the  extraneous  portions,  I  will  give  in  one, — as  a  piece  worth 
reading  among  those  still-life  pictures  : 

'  To  Edward  Sterling,  Esq.,  Knightsbridge,  London. 

'  Falmouth,  loth  August  1841. 

'  MY  DEAR  FATHER, — I  was  not  well  for  a  day  or  two  after 
'  you  went ;  and  since,  I  have  been  busy  about  an  annual  show 
'  of  the  Polytechnic  Society  here,  in  which  my  friends  take  much 
'  interest,  and  for  which  I  have  been  acting  as  one  of  the  judges 
4  in  the  department  of  the  Fine  Arts,  and  have  written  a  little 
'  Report  for  them.  As  I  have  not  said  that  Falmouth  is  as 
'  eminent  as  Athens  or  Florence,  perhaps  the  Committee  will 
'  not  adopt  my  statement.  But  if  they  do,  it  will  be  of  some 
'  use ;  for  I  have  hinted,  as  delicately  as  possible,  that  people 
'  should  not  paint  historical  pictures  before  they  have  the  power 
'  of  drawing  a  decent  outline  of  a  pig  or  a  cabbage.  I  saw  Sir 
'  Charles  Lemon  yesterday,  who  was  kind  as  well  as  civil  in 
'  his  manner;  and  promises  to  be  a  pleasant  neighbour.  There 
'  are  several  of  the  British  Association  heroes  here  ;  but  not 
'  Whewell,  or  any  one  whom  I  know.' 

August  17 th. — 'At  the  Polytechnic  Meeting  here  we  had 
'  several  very  eminent  men  ;  among  others,  Professor  Owen, 
'  said  to  be  the  first  of  comparative  anatomists,  and  Conybeare 
'  the  geologist.  Both  of  these  gave  evening  Lectures ;  and  after 
'  Conybeare's,  at  which  I  happened  to  be  present,  I  said  I 
'  would,  if  they  chose,  make  some  remarks  on  the  Busts  which 
'  happened  to  be  standing  there,  intended  for  prizes  in  the  de- 
'  partment  of  the  Fine  Arts.  They  agreed  gladly.  The  heads 
'  were  Homer,  Pericles,  Augustus,  Dante  and  Michael  Angelo. 
'  I  got  into  the  boxlike  platform,  with  these  on  a  shelf  before 
'  me ;  and  began  a  talk  which  must  have  lasted  some  three 
'  quarters  of  an  hour ;  describing  partly  the  characters  and  cir- 


1 88  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  cumstances  of  the  men,  illustrated  by  anecdotes  and  compared 
'  with  their  physiognomies,  and  partly  the  several  styles  of  sculp- 
'  ture  exhibited  in  the  Casts,  referring  these  to  what  I  consi- 
'  derecl  the  true  principles  of  the  Art.  The  subject  was  one  that 
'  interests  me,  and  I  got  on  in  famous  style ;  and  had  both  pit 
1  and  galleries  all  applauding,  in  a  way  that  had  had  no  prece- 
'  dent  during  any  other  part  of  the  meeting.  Conybeare  paid 
'  me  high  compliments;  Owen  looked  much  pleased, — an  hon- 
'  our  well  purchased  by  a  year's  hard  work  ; — and  everybody, 
'  in  short,  seemed  delighted.  Susan  was  not  there,  and  I  had 
'  nothing  to  make  me  nervous  ;  so  that  I  worked  away  freely, 
'  and  got  vigorously  over  the  ground.  After  so  many  years' 
'  disuse  of  rhetoric,  it  was  a  pleasant  surprise  to  myself  to  find 
'  that  I  could  still  handle  the  old  weapons  without  awkwardness. 
'  More  by  good  luck  than  good  guidance,  it  has  done  my  health 
'  no  harm.  I  have  been  at  Sir  Charles  Lemon's,  though  only 
'  to  pay  a  morning  visit,  having  declined  to  stay  there  or  dine, 
'  the  hours  not  suiting  me.  They  were  very  civil.  The  person 
'  I  saw  most  of  was  his  sister,  Lady  Dunstanville  ;  a  pleasant, 
'  well-informed  and  well-bred  woman.  He  seems  a  most  ami- 
'  able,  kindly  man,  of  fair  good  sense  and  cultivated  tastes. — 
'  I  had  a  letter  today  from  my  Mother'  in  Scotland  ;  '  who  says 
'  she  sent  you  one  which  you  were  to  forward  me ;  which  I  hope 
'  soon  to  have.' 

August  2Qth. — '  I  returned  yesterday  from  Carclew,  Sir  C. 
'  Lemon's  fine  place  about  rive  miles  off;  where  I  had  been 
'  staying  a  couple  of  days,  with  apparently  the  heartiest  welcome. 
'  Susan  was  asked ;  but  wanting  a  Governess,  could  not  leave 
'  home. 

'  Sir  Charles  is  a  widower  (his  Wife  was  sister  to  Lord  II- 
'  Chester)  without  children  ;  but  had  a  niece  staying  with  him, 
'  and  his  sister  Lady  Dunstanville,  a  pleasant  and  very  civil 
'  woman.  There  were  also  Mr.  Bunbury,  eldest  son  of  Sir  Henry 
'  Bunbury,  a  man  of  much  cultivation  and  strong  talents  ;  Mr. 
'  Fox  Talbot,  son,  I  think,  of  another  Ilchester  lady,  and  bro- 
'  ther  of /^Talbot  of  Wales,  but  himself  a  man  of  large  fortune, 
'  and  known  for  photogenic  and  other  scientific  plans  of  extract- 
1  ing  sunbeams  from  cucumbers.  He  also  is  a  man  of  known 
'  ability,  but  chiefly  employed  in  that  peculiar  department.  Item 
1  Professors  Lloyd  and  Owen  :  the  former,  of  Dublin,  son  of  the 


FALMOUTH  :  POEMS.  189 

'  late  Provost,  I  had  seen  before  and  knew  ;  a  great  mathema- 
'  tician  and  optician,  and  a  discoverer  in  those  matters  ;  with 
'  a  clever  little  Wife,  who  has  a  great  deal  of  knowledge,  quite 
'  free  from  pretension.  Owen  is  a  first-rate  comparative  anato- 
'  mist,  they  say  the  greatest  since  Cuvier  ;  lives  in  London,  and 
'  lectures  there.  On  the  whole,  he  interested  me  more  than  any 
'  of  them, — by  an  apparent  force  and  downrightness  of  mind, 
'  combined  with  much  simplicity  and  frankness. 

'  Nothing  could  be  pleasanter  and  easier  than  the  habits  of 
'  life,  with  what  to  me  was  a  very  unusual  degree  of  luxury, 
1  though  probably  nothing  but  what  is  common  among  people  of 
'  large  fortune.  The  library  and  pictures  are  nothing  extraordin- 
'  ary.  The  general  tone  of  good  nature,  good  sense  and  quiet 
'  freedom,  was  what  struck  me  most  ;  and  I  think  besides  this 
'  there  was  a  disposition  to  be  cordially  courteous  towards  me.' 

'  I  took  Edward  a  ride  of  two  hours  yesterday  on  Calvert's 
'  pony,  and  he  is  improving  fast  in  horsemanship.  The  school 
'  appears  to  answer  very  well.  We  shall  have  the  Governess  in 
'  a  day  or  two,  which  will  be  a  great  satisfaction.  Will  you  send 
'  my  Mother  this  scribble  with  my  love  ;  and  believe  me, — Your 
'  affectionate  son,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

One  other  little  event  dwells  with  me,  out  of  those  Falmouth 
times,  exact  date  now  forgotten  ;  a  pleasant  little  matter,  in 
which  Sterling,  and  principally  the  Misses  Fox,  bright  cheery 
young  creatures,  were  concerned  ;  which,  for  the  sake  of  its 
human  interest,  is  worth  mention.  In  a  certain  Cornish  mine, 
said  the  Newspapers  duly  specifying  it,  two  miners  deep  down 
in  the  shaft  were  engaged  putting  in  a  shot  for  blasting :  they 
had  completed  their  affair,  and  were  about  to  give  the  signal 
for  being  hoisted  up, — one  at  a  time  was  all  their  coadjutor  at 
the  top  could  manage,  and  the  second  was  to  kindle  the  match, 
and  then  mount  with  all  speed.  Now  it  chanced  while  they 
were  both  still  below,  one  of  them  thought  the  match  too  long ; 
tried  to  break  it  shorter,  took  a  couple  of  stones,  a  flat  and  a 
sharp,  to  cut  it  shorter  ;  did  cut  it  of  the  due  length,  but,  hor- 
rible to  relate,  kindled  it  at  the  same  time,  and  both  were  still 
below  !  Both  shouted  vehemently  to  the  coadjutor  at  the  wind- 
lass, both  sprang  at  the  basket;  the  windlass  man  could  not 
move  it  with  them  both.  Here  was  a  moment  for  poor  miner 


IQO  JOHN  STERLING. 

Jack  and  miner  Will !  Instant  horrible  death  hangs  over  both, 
— when  Will  generously  resigns  himself:  "  Go  aloft,  Jack,"  and 
sits  down  ;  "away  ;  in  one  minute  I  shall  be  in  Heaven  !"  Jack 
bounds  aloft,  the  explosion  instantly  follows,  bruises  his  face  as 
he  looks  over  ;  he  is  safe  above  ground  :  and  poor  Will  ?  De- 
scending eagerly  they  find  Will  too,  as  if  by  miracle,  buried 
under  rocks  which  had  arched  themselves  over  him,  and  little 
injured:  he  too  is  brought  up  safe,  and  all  ends  joyfully,  say 
the  Newspapers. 

Such  a  piece  of  manful  promptitude,  and  salutary  human 
heroism,  was  worth  investigating.  It  was  investigated  ;  found 
to  be  accurate  to  the  letter, — with  this  addition  and  explanation, 
that  Will,  an  honest,  ignorant  good  man,  entirely  given-up  to 
Methodism,  had  been  perfect  in  the  "faith  of  assurance,"  cer- 
tain that  he  should  get  to  Heaven  if  he  died,  certain  that  Jack 
would  not,  which  had  been  the  ground  of  his  decision  in  that 
great  moment ; — for  the  rest,  that  he  much  wished  to  learn 
reading  and  writing,  and  find  some  way  of  life  above  ground 
instead  of  below.  By  aid  of  the  Misses  Fox  and  the  rest  of  that 
family,  a  subscription  (modest  Anti-  Hudson  testimonial)  was 
raised  to  this  Methodist  hero  :  he  emerged  into  daylight  with 
fifty  pounds  in  his  pocket ;  did  strenuously  try,  for  certain 
months,  to  learn  reading  and  writing  ;  found  he  could  not  learn 
those  arts  or  either  of  them  ;  took  his  money  and  bought  cows 
with  it,  wedding  at  the  same  time  some  religious  likely  milkmaid ; 
and  is,  last  time  I  heard  of  him,  a  prosperous  modest  dairyman, 
thankful  for  the  upper  light  and  safety  from  the  wrath  to  come. 
Sterling  had  some  hand  in  this  affair  :  but,  as  I  said,  it  was  the 
two  young  ladies  of  the  family  that  mainly  did  it. 

In  the  end  of  1841,  after  many  hesitations  and  revisals,  The 
Election  came  out ;  a  tiny  Duodecimo  without  name  attached  j1 
again  inquiring  of  the  public  what  its  suffrage  was  ;  again  to 
little  purpose.  My  vote  had  never  been  loud  for  this  step,  but 
neither  was  it  quite  adverse  ;  and  now,  in  reading  the  poor  little 
Poem  over  again,  after  ten  years'  space,  I  find  it,  with  a  touch- 
ing mixture  of  pleasure  and  repentance,  considerably  better  than 
it  then  seemed  to  me.  My  encouragement,  if  not  to  print  this 
poem,  yet  to  proceed  with  Poetry,  since  there  was  such  a  reso- 
lution for  it,  might  have  been  a  little  more  decided  ! 

1  The  Election:  a  Poem,  in  Seven  Books.    London,  Murray,  1841. 


FALMOUTH  :  POEMS.  191 

This  is  a  small  Piece,  but  aims  at  containing  great  things ; 
a.  multum  inparvo  after  its  sort ;  and  is  executed  here  and  there 
with  undeniable  success.  The  style  is  free  and  flowing,  the  rhyme 
dances  along  with  a  certain  joyful  triumph  ;  everything  of  due 
brevity  withal.  That  mixture  of  mockery  on  the  surface,  which 
finely  relieves  the  real  earnestness  within,  and  flavours  even  what 
is  not  very  earnest  and  might  even  be  insipid  otherwise,  is  not 
ill  managed  :  an  amalgam  difficult  to  effect  well  in  writing ;  nay, 
.impossible  in  writing, — unless  it  stand  already  done  and  effected, 
as  a  general  fact,  in  the  writer's  mind  and  character ;  which  will 
betoken  a  certain  ripeness  there. 

As  I  said,  great  things  are  intended  in  this  little  Piece  ;  the 
motto  itself  foreshadowing  them  : 

' Fluellen.  Ancient  Pistol,  I  do  partly  understand  your  meaning. 
Pistol.  Why,  then,  rejoice  therefor.' 

A  stupid  commonplace  English  Borough  has  lost  its  Member 
suddenly,  by  apoplexy  or  otherwise  ;  resolves,  in  the  usual  ex- 
plosive temper  of  mind,  to  replace  him  by  one  of  two  others  ; 
whereupon  strange  stirring-up  of  rival-attorney  and  other  human 
interests  and  catastrophes.  '  Frank  Vane'  (Sterling  himself), 
and  '  Peter  Mogg,'  the  pattern  English  blockhead  of  elections  : 
these  are  the  candidates.  There  are,  of  course,  fierce  rival  at- 
torneys ;  electors  of  all  creeds  and  complexions  to  be  canvassed : 
a  poor  stupid  Borough  thrown  all  into  red  or  white  heat  ;  into 
blazing  paroxysms  of  activity  and  enthusiasm,  which  render  the 
inner  life  of  it  (and  of  England  and  the  world  through  it)  lumin- 
ously transparent,  so  to  speak; — of  which  opportunity  our  friend 
and  his  '  Muse'  take  dexterous  advantage,  to  delineate  the 
same.  His  pictures  are  uncommonly  good  ;  brief,  joyous,  some- 
times conclusively  true  :  in  rigorously  compressed  shape  ;  all  is 
merry  freshness  and  exuberance  :  we  have  leafy  summer  em- 
bowering red  bricks  and  small  human  interests,  presented  as  in 
glowing  miniature  ;  a  mock-heroic  action  fitly  interwoven  ; — and 
many  a  clear  glance  is  carelessly  given  into  the  deepest  things 
by  the  way.  Very  happy  also  is  the  little  love-episode  ;  and  the 
absorption  of  all  the  interest  into  that,  on  the  part  of  Frank 
Vane  and  of  us,  when  once  this  gallant  Frank,— having  fairly 
from  his  barrelhead  stated  his  own  (and  John  Sterling's)  views 
on  the  aspects  of  the  world,  and  of  course  having  quite  broken- 


192  JOHN  STERLING. 

down  with  his  attorney  and  his  public, — handsomely,  by  stra- 
tagem, gallops  off  with  the  fair  Anne  ;  and  leaves  free  field  to 
Mogg,  free  field  to  the  Hippopotamus  if  it  like.  This  portrait 
of  Mogg  may  be  considered  to  have  merit  : 

'  Though  short  of  days,  how  large  the  mind  of  man ; 
A  godlike  force  enclosed  within  a  span ! 
To  climb  the  skies  we  spurn  our  nature's  clog, 
And  toil  as  Titans  to  elect  a  Mogg. 

'And  who  was  Mogg?    O  Muse!  the  man  declare,  , 

How  excellent  his  worth,  his  parts  how  rare. 
A  younger  son,  he  learnt  in  Oxford's  halls 
The  spheral  harmonies  of  billiard-balls, 
Drank,  hunted,  drove,  and  hid  from  Virtue's  frown 
His  venial  follies  in  Decorum's  gown. 
Too  wise  to  doubt  on  insufficient  cause, 
He  signed  old  Cranmer's  lore  without  a  pause ; 
And  knew  that  logic's  cunning  rules  are  taught 
To  guard  our  creed,  and  not  invigorate  thought, — 
As  those  bronze  steeds  at  Venice,  kept  for  pride, 
Adorn  a  Town  where  not  one  man  can  ride. 

'  From  Isis  sent  with  all  her  loud  acclaims, 
The  Laws  he  studied  on  the  banks  of  Thames. 
Park,  race  and  play,  in  his  capacious  plan, 
Combined  with  Coke  to  form  the  finished  man, 
Until  the  wig's  ambrosial  influence  shed 
Its  last  full  glories  on  the  lawyer's  head. 

'  But  vain  are  mortal  schemes.     The  eldest  son 
At  Harrier  Hall  had  scarce  his  stud  begun, 
When  Death's  pale  courser  took  the  Squire  away 
To  lands  where  never  dawns  a  hunting-day : 
And  so,  while  Thomas  vanished  'mid  the  fog, 
Bright  rose  the  morning-star  of  Peter  Mogg.'2 

And  this  little  picture,  in  a  qui^e  opposite  way : 

'  Now,  in  her  chamber  all  alone,  the  maid 
Her  polished  limbs  and  shoulders  disarrayed ; 
One  little  taper  gave  the  only  light, 
One  little  mirror  caught  so  dear  a  sight ; 
'Mid  hangings  dusk  and  shadows  wide  she  stood, 
Like  some  pale  Nymph  in  dark-leafed  solitude 
Of  rocks  and  gloomy  waters  all  alone, 
Where  sunshine  scarcely  breaks  on  stump  or  stone 

2  Pp.  7,  8. 


FALMOUTH  :  POEMS.  193 

To  scare  the  dreamy  vision.    Thus  did  she, 
A  star  in  deepest  night,  intent  but  free, 
Gleam  through  the  eyeless  darkness,  heeding  not 
Her  beauty's  praise,  but  musing  o'er  her  lot. 
'  Her  garments  one  by  one  she  laid  aside, 
And  then  her  knotted  hair's  long  locks  untied 
With  careless  hand,  and  down  her  cheeks  they  fell, 
And  o'er  her  maiden  bosom's  blue-veined  swell. 
The  right-hand  fingers  played  amidst  her  hair, 
And  with  her  reverie  wandered  here  and  there  : 
The  other  hand  sustained  the  only  dress 
That  now  but  half  concealed  her  loveliness ; 
And  pausing,  aimlessly  she  stood  and  thought, 
In  virgin  beauty  by  no  fear  distraught." 

Manifold,  and  beautiful  of  their  sort,  are  Anne's  musings,  in  this 
interesting  attitude,  in  the  summer  midnight,  in  the  crisis  of  her 
destiny  now  near  ; — at  last : 

'  But  Anne,  at  last  her  mute  devotions  o'er, 
Perceived  the  fact  she  had  forgot  before 
Of  her  too  shocking  nudity ;  and  shame 
Flushed  from  her  heart  o'er  all  the  snowy  frame : 
And,  struck  from  top  to  toe  with  burning  dread, 
She  blew  the  light  out,  and  escaped  to  bed. ' 3 

— which  also  is  a  very  pretty  movement. 

It  must  be  owned  withal,  the  Piece  is  crude  in  parts,  and 
far  enough  from  perfect.  Our  good  painter  has  yet  several  things 
to  learn,  and  to  unlearn.  His  brush  is  not  always  of  the  finest  ; 
and  dashes  about,  sometimes,  in  a  recognisably  sprawling  way : 
but  it  hits  many  a  feature  with  decisive  accuracy  and  felicity; 
and  on  the  palette,  as  usual,  lie  the  richest  colours.  A  grand 
merit,  too,  is  the  brevity  of  everything  ;  by  no  means  a  sponta- 
neous, or  quite  common  merit  with  Sterling. 

This  new  poetic  Duodecimo,  as  the  last  had  done  and  as 
the  next  also  did,  met  with  little  or  no  recognition  from  the 
world  :  which  was  not  very  inexcusable  on  the  world's  part  ; 
though  many  a  poem  with  far  less  proof  of  merit  than  this  offers, 
has  run,  when  the  accidents  favoured  it,  through  its  tens  of 
editions,  and  raised  the  writer  to  the  demigods  for  a  year  or  two, 
if  not  longer.  Such  as  it  is,  we  may  take  it  as  marking,  in  its 
small  way,  in  a  noticed  or  unnoticed  manner,  a  new  height 

3  Pp-  89-93- 

o 


194  JOHN  STERLING, 

arrived  at  by  Sterling  in  his  Poetic  course ;  and  almost  as  vin- 
dicating the  determination  he  had  formed  to  keep  climbing  by 
that  method.  Poor  Poem,  or  rather  Promise  of  a  Poem  !  In 
Sterling's  brave  struggle,  this  little  Election  is  the  highest  point 
he  fairly  lived  to  see  attained,  and  openly  demonstrated  in  print. 
His  next  public  adventure  in  this  kind  was  of  inferior  worth ;  and 
a  third,  which  had  perhaps  intrinsically  gone  much  higher  than 
any  of  its  antecessors,  was  cut-off  as  a  fragment,  and  has  not 
hitherto  been  published.  Steady  courage  is  needed  on  the  Poetic 
course,  as  on  all  courses  ! — 

Shortly  after  this  Publication,  in  the  beginning  of  1842, 
poor  Calvert,  long  a  hopeless  sufferer,  was  delivered  by  death  : 
Sterling's  faithful  fellow-pilgrim  could  no  more  attend  him  in 
his  wayfarings  through  this  world.  The  weary  and  heavy-laden 
man  had  borne  his  burden  well.  Sterling  says  of  him  to  Hare: 
'  Since  I  wrote  last,  I  have  lost  Calvert ;  the  man  with  whom, 
'  of  all  others,  I  have  been  during  late  years  the  most  intimate. 
'  Simplicity,  benevolence,  practical  good  sense  and  moral  earn- 
'  estness  were  his  great  unfailing  characteristics  ;  and  no  man, 
'  I  believe,  ever  possessed  them  more  entirely.  His  illness  had 
'  latterly  so  prostrated  him,  both  in  mind  and  body,  that  those 
'  who  most  loved  him  were  most  anxious  for  his  departure.' 
There  was  something  touching  in  this  exit ;  in  the  quenching  of 
so  kind  and  bright  a  little  life  under  the  dark  billows  of  death. 
To  me  he  left  a  curious  old  Print  of  James  Nayler  the  Quaker, 
which  I  still  affectionately  preserve. 

Sterling,  from  this  greater  distance,  came  perhaps  rather 
seldomer  to  London  ;  but  we  saw  him  still  at  moderate  intervals ; 
and,  through  his  family  here  and  other  direct  and  indirect  chan- 
nels, were  kept  in  lively  communication  with  him.  Literature 
was  still  his  constant  pursuit ;  and,  with  encouragement  or  with- 
out, Poetic  composition  his  chosen  department  therein.  On  the 
ill  success  of  The  Election,  or  any  ill  success  with  the  world, 
nobody  ever  heard  him  utter  the  least  murmur  ;  condolence  upon 
that  or  any  such  subject  might  have  been  a  questionable  opera- 
tion, by  no  means  called  for  !  Nay,  my  own  approval,  higher 
than  this  of  the  world,  had  been  languid,  by  no  means  enthusi- 
astic. But  our  valiant  friend  took  all  quietly  ;  and  was  not  to 
be  repulsed  from  his  Poetics  either  by  the  world's  coldness  or 


FALMOUTH  :  POEMS,  195 

by  mine  ;  he  laboured  at  his  Stratford 'j — determined  to  labour, 
in  all  ways,  till  he  felt  the  end  of  his  tether  in  this  direction. 

He  sometimes  spoke,  with  a  certain  zeal,  of  my  starting  a 
Periodical :  Why  not  lift-up  some  kind  of  war-flag  against  the 
obese  platitudes,  and  sickly  superstitious  aperies  arid  impos- 
tures of  the  time  ?  But  I  had  to  answer,  "  Who  will  join  it,  my 
friend  ?"  He  seemed  to  say,  "  I,  for  one  ;"  and  there  was  oc- 
casionally a  transient  temptation  in  the  thought,  but  transient 
only.  No  fighting  regiment,  with  the  smallest  attempt  towards 
drill,  cooperation,  commissariat,  or  the  like  unspeakable  advan- 
tages, could  be  raised  in  Sterling's  time  or  mine  ;  which  truly, 
to  honest  fighters,  is  a  rather  grievous  want.  A  grievous,  but 
not  quite  a  fatal  one.  For,  failing  this,  failing  all  things  and 
all  men,  there  remains  the  solitary  battle  (and  were  it  by  the 
poorest  weapon,  the  tongue  only,  or  were  it  even  by  wise  abstin- 
ence and  silence  and  without  any  weapon),  such  as  each  man 
for  himself  can  wage  while  he  has  life  :  an  indubitable  and 
infinitely  comfortable  fact  for  every  man  !  Said  battle  shaped 
itself  fos  Sterling,  as  we  have  long  since  seen,  chiefly  in  the 
poetic  form,  in  the  singing  or  hymning  rather  than  the  speak- 
ing form  ;  and  in  that  he  wa's  cheerfully  assiduous  according 
to  his  light.  The  unfortunate  Strafford  is  far  bn  towards  com- 
pletion ;  a  Cceur-de-Lion,  of  which  we  shall  hear  farther,  '  C<xnr- 
de-Lion,  greatly  the  best  of  all  his  Poems,"  unluckily  not  com- 
pleted, and  still  unpublished,  already  hangs  in  the  wind. 

His  Letters  to  friends  continue  copious  ;  and  he  has,  as 
always,  a  loyally  interested  eye  on  whatsoever  of  notable  is 
passing  in  the  world.  Especially  on  whatsoever  indicates  to 
him  the  spiritual  condition  of  the  world.  Of  '  Strauss,'  in 
English  or  in  German,  we  now  hear  nothing  more  ;  of  Church 
matters,  and  that  only  to  special  correspondents,  less  artd  less. 
Strauss,  whom  he  used  to  mention,  had  interested  him  only  as 
a  sign  of  the  times;  in  which  sense  alone  do  we  find,  for  a  year 
or  two  back,  any  notice  of  the  Church,  or  its  affairs  by  Sterling; 
and  at  last  even  this  as  good  as  ceases  :  "Adieu,  O  Church  ; 
thy  road  is  that  way,  mine  is  this  :  in  God's  name,  adieu  !" 
'  What  we  are  going  to,'  says  he  once,  '  is  abundantly  obscure; 
'  but  what  all  men  are  going  from,  is  very  plain.'- — Sifted  out 
of  many  pages,  not  of  sufficient  interest,  here  arc  one  or  two 
miscellaneous  sentences,  jib-out  the  date  we  are  now  arrived  at : 


196  JOHN  STERLING. 

Falmouth,  ^d  November  1841  (To  Dr.  Symonds}. — 'Yes- 
'  terday  was  my  Wedding-day  :  eleven  years  of  marriage  ;  and 
'  on  the  whole  my  verdict  is  clear  for  matrimony.  I  solemnised 
'  the  day  by  reading  John  Gilpin  to  the  children,  who  with 
'  their  Mother  are  all  pretty  well.'  *  *  *  '  There  is  a  trick 
'  of  sham  Elizabethan  writing  now  prevalent,  that  looks  plau- 
'  sible,  but  in  most  cases  means  nothing  at  all.  Darley  has 
'  real  (lyrical)  genius  ;  Taylor,  wonderful  sense,  clearness  and 
'  weight  of  purpose ;  Tennyson,  a  rich  and  exquisite  fancy.  All 
'  the  other  men  of  our  tiny  generation  that  I  know  of  are,  in 
'  Poetry,  either  feeble  or  fraudulent.  I  know  nothing  of  the 
'  Reviewer  you  ask  about.' 

December  \\th  (To  his  Mother).  —  'I  have  seen  no  new 
'  books  ;  but  am  reading  your  last.  I  got  hold  of  the  two  first 
'  Numbers  of  the  Hoggarty  Diamond;  and  read  them  with 
'  extreme  delight.  What  is  there  better  in  Fielding  or  Gold- 
'  smith  ?  The  man  is  a  true  genius;  and,  with  quiet  and  com- 
'  fort,  might  produce  masterpieces  that  would  last  as  long  as 
'  any  we  have,  and  delight  millions  of  unborn  readers.  There 
'  is  more  truth  and  nature  in  one  of  these  papers  than  in  all 

' 's  Novels  together.' — Thackeray,  always  a  close  friend 

of  the  Sterling  house,  will  observe  that  this  is  dated  1841,  not 
1851,  and  have  his  own  reflections  on  the  matter. 

December  17 th  (To  the  same}. — '  I  am  not  much  surprised 

'  at  Lady 's  views  of  Coleridge's  little  Book  on  Inspiration.' 

— '  Great  part  of  the  obscurity  of  the  Letters  arises  from  his 
'  anxiety  to  avoid  the  difficulties  and  absurdities  of  the  common 
'  views,  and  his  panic  terror  of  saying  anything  that  bishops 
'  and  good  people  would  disapprove.  He  paid  a  heavy  price, 
'  viz.  all  his  own  candour  and  simplicity,  in  hope  of  gaining 

'  the  favour  of  persons  like  Lady ;  and  you  see  what  his 

'  reward  is  !  A  good  lesson  for  us  all.' 

February  1st,  1842  (To  the  same}. — '  English  Toryism  has, 
'  even  in  my  eyes,  about  as  much  to  say  for  itself  as  any  other 
'  form  of  doctrine  ;  but  Irish  Toryism  is  the  downright  pro- 
'  clamation  of  brutal  injustice,  and  all  in  the  name  of  God  and 
'  the  Bible  !  It  is  almost  enough  to  make  one  turn  Mahometan, 
'  but  for  the  fear  of  the  four  wives.' 

March  12th,  1842  (To  his  Father}.  —  '*  *  *  Important 
'  to  me  as  these  matters  are,  it  almost  seems  as  if  there  were 


NAPLES  :  POEMS.  197 

'  something  unfeeling  in  writing  of  them,  under  the  pressure  of 
'  such  news  as  ours  from  India.  If  the  Cabool  Troops  have 
'  perished,  England  has  not  received  such  a  blow  from  an  ene- 
1  my,  nor  anything  approaching  it,  since  Buckingham's  Expe- 
'  dition  to  the  Isle  of  Rhe.  Walcheren  destroyed  us  by  climate ; 
'  and  Corunna,  with  all  its  losses,  had  much  of  glory.  But  here 
'  we  are  dismally  injured  by  mere  Barbarians,  in  a  War  on  our 
'  part  shamefully  unjust  as  well  as  foolish  :  a  combination  of 
'  disgrace  and  calamity  that  would  have  shocked  Augustus  even 
'  more  than  the  defeat  of  Varus.  One  of  the  four  officers  with 
'  Macnaghten  was  George  Lawrence,  a  brother-in-law  of  Nat 
'  Barton  ;  a  distinguished  man,  and  the  father  of  five  totally 
'  unprovided  children.  He  is  a  prisoner,  if  not  since  murdered. 
'  Macnaghten  I  do  not  pity  ;  he  was  the  prime  author  of  the 
'  whole  mad  War.  But  Burnes  ;  and  the  women  ;  and  our 
'  regiments  !  India,  however,  I  feel  sure,  is  safe.' 

So  roll  the  months  at  Falmouth  ;  such  is  the  ticking  of  the 
great  World-Horologe  as  heard  there  by  a  good  ear.  '  I  will- 
'  ingly  add'  (so  ends  he,  once),  '  that  I  lately  found  somewhere 
'  this  fragment  of  an  Arab's  love-song  :  "  O  Ghalia  !  If  my 
'  father  were  a  jackass,  I  would  sell  him  to  purchase  Ghalia !" 
'  A  beautiful  parallel  to  the  French  "  Avec  cette  sauce  on  man- 
'  gerait  son  pore"  ' 


CHAPTER  IV. 

NAPLES  :    POEMS. 

IN  the  bleak  weather  of  this  spring  1 842,  he  was  again  abroad 
for  a  little  while  ;  partly  from  necessity,  or  at  least  utility ;  and 
partly,  as  I  guess,  because  the  circumstances  favoured,  and  he 
could  with  a  good  countenance  indulge  a  little  wish  he  had  long 
had.  In  the  Italian  Tour,  which  ended  suddenly  by  Mrs.  Ster- 
ling's illness  recalling  him,  he  had  missed  Naples ;  a  loss  which 
he  always  thought  to  be  considerable  ;  and  which,  from  time 
to  time,  he  had  formed  little  projects,  failures  hitherto,  for  sup- 
plying. The  rigours  of  spring  were  always  dangerous  to  him 
in  England,  and  it  was  always  of  advantage  to  get  out  of  them: 
and  then  the  sight  of  Naples,  too ;  this,  always  a  thing  to  be 


198  JOHN  STERLING. 

done  some  day,  was  now  possible.  Enough,  with  the  real  or 
imaginary  hope  of  bettering  himself  in  health,  and  the  certain 
one  of  seeing  Naples,  and  catching  a  glance  of  Italy  again,  he 
now  made  a  run  thither.  It  was  not  long  after  Calvert's  death. 
The  Tragedy  of  Strafford  lay  finished  in  his  desk.  Several 
things,  sad  and  bright,  were  finished.  A  little  intermezzo  of 
ramble  was  not  unadvisable. 

His  tour  by  water  and  by  land  was  brief  and  rapid  enough ; 
hardly  above  two  months  in  all.  Of  which  the  following  Letters 
will,  with  some  abridgment,  give  us  what  details  are  needful : 

'  To  Charles  Barton,  Esq.,  Leamington. 

'  Falmouth,  25th  March  1842. 

1  Mv  DEAR  CHARLES,  —  My  attempts  to  shoot  you  flying 
'  with  my  paper  pellets  turned  out  very  ill.  I  hope  young  ladies 
'  succeed  better  when  they  happen  to  make  appointments  with 
'  you.  Even  now,  I  hardly  know  whether  you  have  received  a 
'  Letter  I  wrote  on  Sunday  last,  and  addressed  to  The  Caven- 
'  dish.  I  sent  it  thither  by  Susan's  advice. 

'  In  this  missive, — happily  for  us  both,  it  did  not  contain  a 
'  hundred-pound  note  or  any  trifle  of  that  kind,  —  I  informed 
'  you  that  I  was  compelled  to  plan  an  expedition  towards  the 
'  South  Pole,  stopping,  however,  in  the  Mediterranean  ;  and 
'  that  I  designed  leaving  this  on  Monday  next  for  Cadiz  or  Gib- 
'  raltar,  and  then  going  on  to  Malta,  whence  Italy  and  Sicily 
4  would  be  accessible.  Of  course  your  company  would  be  a 
'  great  pleasure,  if  it  were  possible  for  you  to  join  me.  The 
'  delay  in  hearing  from  you,  through  no  fault  of  yours,  has  na- 
'  turally  put  me  out  a  little  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  my  plan  still 
'  holds,  and  I  shall  leave  this  on  Monday  for  Gibraltar,  where 
'  the  Great  Liverpool  will  catch  me,  and  carry  me  to  Malta. 
'  The  Great  Liverpool  leaves  Southampton  on  the  ist  of  April, 
'  and  Falmouth  on  the  2d  ;  and  will  reach  Gibraltar  in  from 
'  four  to  five  days. 

'  Now,  if  you  should  be  able  and  disposed  to  join  me,  you 
'  have  only  to  embark  in  that  sumptuous  tea-kettle,  and  pick 
'  me  up  under  the  guns  of  the  Rock.  We  could  then  cruise  on 
'  to  Malta,  Sicily,  Naples,  Rome,  &c.  d  discretion.  It  is  just 
'  possible,  though  extremely  improbable,  that  my  steamer  of 
'  Monday  (most  likely  the  Montrose)  may  not  reach  Gibraltar 


NAPLES  :  POEMS.  199 

'  so  soon  as  the  Liverpool.  If  so,  and  if  you  should  actually  be 
'  on  board,  you  must  stop  at  Gibraltar.  But  there  are  ninety- 
'  nine  chances  to  one  against  this.  Write  at  all  events  to  Susan, 
'  to  let  her  know  what  you  propose. 

'  I  do  not  wait  till  the  Great  Liverpool  goes,  because  the 
'  object  for  me  is  to  get  into  a  warm  climate  as  soon  as  pos- 
'  sible.  I  am  decidedly  better. — Your  affectionate  Brother, 

'JOHN  STERLING.' 

Barton  did  not  go  with  him,  none  went ;  but  he  arrives 
safe,  and  not  Jiurt  in  health,  which  is  something. 

'  To  Mrs.  Sterling,  Knightsbridge,  London. 

'  Malta,  14111  April  1842. 

•DEAREST  MOTHER, — I  am  writing  to  Susan  through  France, 
'  by  tomorrow's  mail;  and  will  also  send  you  a  line,  instead  of 
'  waiting  for  the  longer  English  conveyance. 

'  We  reached  this  the  day  before  yesterday,  in  the  evening ; 
'  having  had  a  strong  breeze  against  us  for  a  day  or  two  before ; 
'  which  made  me  extremely  uncomfortable, — and  indeed  my 
'  headache  is  hardly  gone  yet.  From  about  the  4th  to  the  gth 
'  of  the  month,  we  had  beautiful  weather,  and  I  was  happy 
'  enough.  You  will  see  by  the  map  that  the  straightest  line  from 
'  Gibraltar  to  this  place  goes  close  along  the  African  coast ; 
'  which  accordingly  we  saw  with  the  utmost  clearness  ;  and 
'  found  it  generally  a  line  of  mountains,  the  higher  peaks  and 
'  ridges  covered  with  snow.  We  went  close-in  to  Algiers ;  which 
'  looks  strong,  but  entirely  from  art.  The  town  lies  on  the 
'  slope  of  a  straight  coast ;  and  is  not  at  all  embayed,  though 
'  there  is  some  little  shelter  for  shipping  within  the  mole.  It 
'  is  a  square  patch  of  white  buildings  huddled  together ;  fringed 
'  with  batteries  ;  and  commanded  by  large  forts  on  the  ridge 
'  above :  a  most  uncomfortable-looking  place ;  though,  no  doubt, 
'  there  are  cafes  and  billiard-rooms  and  a  theatre  within,- — for 
'  the  French  like  to  have  their  Houris  &c.  on  this  side  of  Para- 
'  disc,  if  possible. 

'  Our  party  of  fifty  people  (we  had  taken  some  on  board  at 
'  Gibraltar)  broke  up,  on  reaching  this ;  never,  of  course  to 
'  meet  again.  The  greater  part  do  not  proceed  to  Alexandria. 
'  Considering  that  there  was  a  bundle  of  midshipmen,  ensigns 


200  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  &c.,  we  had  as  much  reason  among  us  as  could  perhaps  be 
'  looked  for ;  and  from  several  I  gained  bits  of  information  and 
'  traits  of  character,  though  nothing  very  remarkable." 

'  I  have  established  myself  in  an  inn,  rather  than  go  to  Lady 
'  Louis's  j1  not  feeling  quite  equal  to  company,  except  in  mode- 
'  rate  doses.  I  have,  however,  seen  her  a  good  deal ;  and  dine 
'  there  today,  very  privately,  for  Sir  John  is  not  quite  well,  and 
'  they  will  have  no  guests.  The  place,  however,  is  full  of  offi- 
'  cial  banqueting,  for  various  unimportant  reasons.  When  here 
'  before,  I  was  in  much  distress  and  anxiety,  on  my  way  from 
'  Rome  ;  and  I  suppose  this  it  was  that  prevented  its  making 
'  the  same  impression  on  me  as  now,  when  it  seems  really  the  ' 
1  stateliest  town  I  have  ever  seen.  The  architecture  is  gene- 
'  rally  of  a  corrupt  Roman  kind  ;  with  something  of  the  varied 
'  and  picturesque  look,  though  much  more  massive,  of  our 
1  Elizabethan  buildings.  We  have  the  finest  English  summer 
'  and  a  pellucid  sky.'  *  *  '  Your  affectionate 

'  JOHN  STERLING.' 

At  Naples  next,  for  three  weeks,  was  due  admiration  of  the 
sceneries  and  antiquities,  Bay  and  Mountain,  by  no  means  for- 
getting Art  and  the  Museum :  '  to  Pozzuoli,  to  Baias,  round  the 
Promontory  of  Sorrento;' — above  all,  'twice  to  Pompeii,'  where 
the  elegance  and  classic  simplicity  of  Ancient  Housekeeping 
strikes  us  much  ;  and  again  to  Psestum,  where  '  the  Temple  of 
'  Neptune  is  far  the  noblest  building  I  have  ever  seen  ;  and 
'  makes  both  Greek  and  Revived  Roman  seem  quite  barbaric.' 
'  Lord  Ponsonby  lodges  in  the  same  house  with  me  ; — but,  of 
'  course,  I  do  not  countenance  an  adherent  of  a  beaten  Party  !'2 
— Or  let  us  take  this  more  compendious  account,  which  has  much 
more  of  human  in  it,  from  an  onward  stage,  ten  days  later : 

'  To  Thomas  Carlyle,  Esq.,  Chelsea,  London. 

'  Rome,  i3th  May  1842. 

'  MY  DEAR  CARLYLE, — I  hope  I  wrote  to  you  before  leav- 
'  ing  England,  to  tell  you  of  the  necessity  for  my  doing  so. 

1  Sister  of  Mrs.  Strachey  and  Mrs.  Duller  :  Sir  John  Louis  was  now  in  a 
high  Naval  post  at  Malta. 

3  Long  Letter  to  his  Father :  Naples,  $d  May  1842. 


NAPLES  :  POEMS.  2ol 

'  Though  coming  to  Italy,  there  was  little  comfort  in  the  pro- 
'  spect  of  being  divided  from  my  family,  and  pursuits  which 
'  grew  on  me  every  day.  However,  I  tried  to  make  the  best 
'  of  it,  and  have  gained  both  health  and  pleasure. 

'  In  spite  of  scanty  communications  from  England  (owing 
'  to  the  uncertainty  of  my  position),  a  word  or  two  concerning 
'  you  and  your  dear  Wife  have  reached  me.  Lately  it  has  often 
'  occurred  to  me,  that  the  sight  of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  of  the 
'  beautiful  coast  from  that  to  this  place,  and  of  Rome  itself,  all 
'  bathed  in  summer  sunshine,  and  green  with  spring  foliage, 
'  would  be  some  consolation  to  her.3  Pray  give  her  my  love. 

'  I  have  been  two  days  here  ;  and  almost  the  first  thing  I 
'  did  was  to  visit  the  Protestant  burial-ground,  and  the  graves 
'  of  those  I  knew  when  here  before.  But  much  as  being  now 
'  alone  here  I  feel  the  difference,  there  is  no  scene  where  Death 
'  seems  so  little  dreadful  and  miserable  as  in  the  lonelier  neigh- 
'  bourhoods  of  this  old  place.  All  one's  impressions,  however, 
'  as  to  that  and  everything  else,  appear  to  me,  on  reflection, 
'  more  affected  than  I  had  for  a  long  time  any  notion  of,  by 
'  one's  own  isolation.  All  the  feelings  and  activities  which 
'  family,  friends  and  occupation  commonly  engage,  are  turned, 
'  here  in  one's  solitude,  with  strange  force  into  the  channels  of 
'  mere  observation  and  contemplation  ;  and  the  objects  one  is 
'  conversant  with  seem  to  gain  a  tenfold  significance  from  the 
'  abundance  of  spare  interest  one  now  has  to  bestow  on  them. 
'  This  explains  to  me  a  good  deal  of  the  peculiar  effect  that  Italy 
'  has  always  had  on  me  :  and  something  of  that  artistic  enthu- 
'  siasm  which  I  remember  you  used  to  think  so  singular  in 
'  Goethe's  Travels.  Darley,  who  is  as  much  a  brooding  hermit 
'  in  England  as  here,  felt  nothing  but  disappointment  from  a 
'  country  which  fills  me  with  childish  wonder  and  delight. 

'  Of  you  I  have  received  some  slight  notice  from  Mrs. 
1  Strachey;  who  is  on  her  way  hither;  and  will  (she  writes)  be 
'  at  Florence  on  the  I5th,  and  here  before  the  end  of  the  month. 
'  She  notices  having  received  a  Letter  of  yours  which  had  pleased 
'  her  much.  She  now  proposes  spending  the  summer  at  Sor- 
'  rento,  or  thereabouts  ;  and  if  mere  delight  of  landscape  and 
'  climate  were  enough,  Adam  and  Eve,  had  their  courier  taken 
1  them  to  that  region,  might  have  done  well  enough  without 
3  Death  of  her  Mother,  iour  months  before.  (Note  0/1870.) 


202  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  Paradise, — and  not  been  tempted,  either,  by  any  Tree  of  Know- 
'  ledge  ;  a  kind  that  does  not  flourish  in  the  Two  Sicilies. 

'  The  ignorance  of  the  Neapolitans,  from  the  highest  to  the 
'  lowest,  is  very  eminent  ;  and  excites  the  admiration  of  all  the 
'  rest  of  Italy.  In  the  great  building  containing  all  the  Works 
'  of  Art,  and  a  Library  of  150,000  volumes,  I  asked  for  the 
'  best  existing  Book  (a  German  one  published  ten  years  ago)  on 
'  the  Statues  in  that  very  Collection  ;  and,  after  a  rabble  of 
'  clerks  and  custodes,  got  up  to  a  dirty  priest,  who  bowing  to 
'  the  ground  regretted  "they  did  not  possess  it,"  but  at  last 
'  remembered  that  "they  //#</ entered  into  negotiations  on  the 
'  subject,  which  as  yet  had  been  unsuccessful." — The  favourite 
'  device  on  the  walls  at  Naples  is  a  vermilion  Picture  of  a  Male 
'  and  Female  Soul  respectively  up  to  the  waist  (the  waist  of  a 
'  soul)  in  fire,  and  an  Angel  above  each,  watering  the  sufferers 
'  from  a  watering-pot.  This  is  intended  to  gain  alms  for  Masses. 
'  The  same  populace  sit  for  hours  on  the  Mole,  listening  to 
'  rhapsodists  who  recite  Ariosto.  I  have  seen  I  think  five  of 
'  them  all  within  a  hundred  yards  of  each  other,  and  some  sets 
'  of  fiddlers  to  boot.  Yet  there  are  few  parts  of  the  world  where 
'  I  have  seen  less  laughter  than  there.  The  Miracle  of  Janu- 
'  arius's  Blood  is,  on  the  whole,  my  most  curious  experience. 
'  The  furious  entreaties,  shrieks  and  sobs,  of  a  set  of  old  women, 
'  yelling  till  the  Miracle  was  successfully  performed,  are  things 
'  never  to  be  forgotten. 

'  I  spent  three  weeks  in  this  most  glittering  of  countries, 
'and  saw  most  of  the  usual  wonders,  —  the  Paestan  Temples 
'  being  to  me  much  the  most  valuable.  But  Pompeii  and  all 
'  that  it  has  yielded,  especially  the  Fresco  Paintings,  have  also 
'  an  infinite  interest.  When  one  considers  that  this  prodigious 
'  series  of  beautiful  designs  supplied  the  place  of  our  common 
'  room-papers, — the  wealth  of  poetic  imagery  among  the  An- 
'  cients,  and  the  corresponding  traditional  variety  and  elegance 
'  of  pictorial  treatment,  seem  equally  remarkable.  The  Greek 
'  and  Latin  Books  do  not  give  one  quite  so  fully  this  sort  of 
'  impression  ;  because  they  afford  no  direct  measure  of  the  ex- 
'  tent  of  their  own  diffusion.  But  these  are  ornaments  from  the 
'  smaller  class  of  decent  houses  in  a  little  Country  Town  ;  and 
'  the  greater  number  of  them,  by  the  slightness  of  the  execution, 
'  show  very  clearly  that  they  were  adapted  to  ordinary  taste, 


NAPLES  :  POEMS.  203 

1  and  done  by  mere  artisans.  In  general  clearness,  symmetry 
'  and  simplicity  of  feeling,  I  cannot  say  that,  on  the  whole,  the 
'  works  of  Raffaelle  equal  them  ;  though  of  course  he  has  end- 
'  less  beauties  such  as  we  could  not  find  unless  in  the  great 
'  original  works  from  which  these  sketches  at  Pompeii  were 
'  taken.  Yet  with  all  my  much  increased  reverence  for  the 
'  Greeks,  it  seems  more  plain  than  ever  that  they  had  hardly 
'  anything  of  the  peculiar  devotional  feeling  of  Christianity. 

'  Rome,  which  I  loved  before  above  all  the  earth,  now  dc- 
'  lights  me  more  than  ever; — though  at  this  moment  there  is 
'  rain  falling  that  would  not  discredit  Oxford  Street.  The  depth, 
'  sincerity  and  splendour  that  there  once  was  in  the  semi-pagan- 
'  ism  of  the  old  Catholics  comes  out  in  St.  Peter's  and  its  de- 
'  pendencies,  almost  as  grandly  as  does  Greek  and  Roman  Art 
'  in  the  Forum  and  the  Vatican  Galleries.  I  wish  you  were 
'  here  :  but,  at  all  events,  hope  to  see  you  and  your  Wife  once 
'  more  during  this  summer. — Yours,  JOHN  STERLING.' 

At  Paris,  where  he  stopped  a  day  and  night,  and  generally 
through  his  whole  journey  from  Marseilles  to  Havre,  one  thing 
attended  him  :  the  prevailing  epidemic  of  the  place  and  year  ; 
now  gone,  and  nigh  forgotten,  as  other  influenzas  are.  He 
writes  to  his  Father :  '  I  have  not  yet  met  a  single  Frenchman, 
'  who  could  give  me  any  rational  explanation  why  they  were  all 
'  in  such  a  confounded  rage  against  us.  Definite  causes  of 
'  quarrel  a  statesman  may  know  how  to  deal  with,  inasmuch  as 
1  the  removal  of  them  may  help  to  settle  the  dispute.  But  it 
'  must  be  a  puzzling  task  to  negotiate  about  instincts ;  to  which 
'  class,  as  it  seems  to  me,  we  must  have  recourse  for  an  under- 
'  standing  of  the  present  abhorrence  which  everybody  on  the 
'  other  side  of  the  Channel  not  only  feels,  but  makes  a  point  to 
'  boast  of,  against  the  name  of  Britain.  France  is  slowly  arm- 
'  ing,  especially  with  Steam,  en  attendant  a  more  than  possible 
'  contest,  in  which  they  reckon  confidently  on  the  eager  coopera- 
'  tion  of  the  Yankees ;  as,  vice  versa,  an  American  told  me  that 
'  his  countrymen  do  on  that  of  France.  One  person  at  Paris 
'  (M.  -  -  whom  you  know)  provoked  me  to  tell  him  that 
'  "  England  did  not  want  another  battle  of  Trafalgar  ;  but  if 
'  France  did,  she  might  compel  England  to  gratify  her." ' — 
After  a  couple  of  pleasant  and  profitable  months,  he  was  safe 


204  JOHN  STERLING. 

home  again  in  the  first  days  of  June  ;  and  saw  Falmouth  not 
under  gray  iron  skys,  and  whirls  of  March  dust,  but  bright  with 
summer  opulence  and  the  roses  corning  out. 

It  was  what  I  call  his  'fifth  peregrinity  ;'  his  fifth  and  last. 
He  soon  afterwards  came  up  to  London  ;  spent  a  couple  of 
weeks,  with  all  his  old  vivacity,  among  us  here.  The  jEscula- 
pian  oracles,  it  would  appear,  gave  altogether  cheerful  prophecy ; 
the  highest  medical  authority  '  expresses  the  most  decided  opi- 
'  nion  that  I  have  gradually  mended  for  some  years  ;  and  in 
'  truth  I  have  not,  for  six  or  seven,  been  so  free  from  serious 
'  symptoms  of  illness  as  at  present."  So  uncertain  are  all  oracles, 
./Esculapian  and  other  ! 

During  this  visit,  he  made  one  new  acquaintance  which  he 
much  valued  ;  drawn  thither,  as  I  guess,  by  the  wish  to  take 
counsel  about  Strafford.  He  writes  to  his  Clifton  friend,  under 
date,  ist  July  1842  :  '  Lockhart,  of  the  Quarterly  Review,  I 
'  made  my  first  oral  acquaintance  with  ;  and  found  him  as  neat, 
'  clear  and  cutting  a  brain  as  you  would  expect ;  but  with  an 
'  amount  of  knowledge,  good  nature  and  liberal  antibigotry,  that 
'  would  much  surprise  many.  The  tone  of  his  children  towards 
'  him  seemed  to  me  decisive  of  his  real  kindness.  He  quite 
'  agreed  with  me  as  to  the  threatening  seriousness  of  our  present 
'  social  perplexities,  and  the  necessity  and  difficulty  of  doing 
'  something  effectual  for  so  satisfying  the  manual  multitude  as 
'  not  to  overthrow  all  legal  security." 

'  Of  other  persons  whom  I  saw  in  London,'  continues  he, 
'  there  are  several  that  would  much  interest  you, — though  I 
'  missed  Tennyson,  by  a  mere  chance.'  *  *  *  'John  Mill  has 
'  completely  finished,  and  sent  to  the  bookseller,  his  great  work 
'  on  Logic  ;  the  labour  of  many  years  of  a  singularly  subtle, 
'  patient  and  comprehensive  mind.  It  will  be  our  chief  specu- 
'  lative  monument  of  this  age.  Mill  and  I  could  not  meet  above 
'  two  or  three  times  ;  but  it  was  with  the  openness  and  fresh- 
'  ness  of  schoolboy  friends,  though  our  friendship  only  dates 
'  from  the  manhood  of  both.' 

He  himself  was  busier  than  ever;  occupied  continually  with 
all  manner  of  Poetic  interests.  Cocur-de-Lion,  a  new  and  more 
elaborate  attempt  in  the  mock-heroic  or  comico-didactic  vein, 
had  been  on  hand  for  some  time,  the  scope  of  it  greatly  deepen- 
ing and  expanding  itself  since  it  first  took  hold  ot  him  ;  and  now, 


NAPLES  :  POEMS.  205 

soon  after  the  Naples  journey,  it  rose  into  shape  on  the  wider 
plan  ;  shaken-up  probably  by  this  new  excitement,  and  indebted 
to  Calabria,  Palermo  and  the  Mediterranean  scenes  for  much  of 
the  vesture  it  had.  With  this,  which  opened  higher  hopes  for 
him  than  any  of  his  previous  efforts,  he  was  now  employing  all 
his  time  and  strength  ; — and  continued  to  do  so,  this  being  the 
last  effort  granted  him  among  us. 

Already,  for  some  months,  Straffbrdlxy  complete  :  but  how 
to  get  it  from  the  stocks  ;  in  what  method  to  launch  it  ?  The 
step  was  questionable.  Before  going  to  Italy  he  had  sent  me 
the  Manuscript;  still  loyal  and  friendly;  and  willing  to  hear  the 
worst  that  could  be  said  of  his  poetic  enterprise.  I  had  to  afflict 
him  again,  the  good  brave  soul,  with  the  deliberate  report  that 
I  could  not  accept  this  Drama  as  his  Picture  of  the  Life  of 
Strafford,  or  as  any  Picture  of  that  strange  Fact.  To  which  he 
answered,  with  an  honest  manfulness,  in  a  tone  which  is  now 
pathetic  enough  to  me,  that  he  was  much  grieved  yet  much 
obliged,  and  uncertain  how  to  decide.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr. 
Hare  wrote,  warmly  eulogising.  Lockhart  too  spoke  kindly, 
though  taking  some  exceptions.  It  was  a  questionable  case. 
On  the  whole,  Strafford  remained,  for  the  present,  unlaunched; 
and  Cceur-de-Lion  was  getting  its  first  timbers  diligently  laid 
down.  So  passed,  in  peaceable  seclusion,  in  wholesome  em- 
ployment and  endeavour,  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1842-3. 
On  Christmas-day,  he  reports  to  his  Mother  : 

'  I  wished  to  write  to  you  yesterday  ;  but  was  prevented  by 
'  the  important  business  of  preparing  a  Tree,  in  the  German 
'  fashion,  for  the  children.  This  project  answered  perfectly,  as 
'  it  did  last  year  ;  and  gave  them  the  greatest  pleasure.  I  wish 
'  you  and  my  Father  could  have  been  here  to  see  their  merry 
'  faces.  Johnny  was  in  the  thick  of  the  fun,  and  much  happier 
'  than  Lord  Anson  on  capturing  the  galleon.  We  are  all  going 
'  on  well  and  quietly,  but  with  nothing  very  new  among  us.' — 
'  The  last  book  I  have  lighted  on  is  Moffat's  Missionary  Labours 
'  in  South  Africa  ;  which  is  worth  reading.  There  is  the  best 
'  collection  of  lion  stories  in  it  that  I  have  ever  seen.  But  the 
'  man  is,  also,  really  a  very  good  fellow  ;  and  fit  for  something 
'  much  better  than  most  lions  are.  He  is  very  ignorant,  and 
'  mistaken  in  some  things  ;  but  has  strong  sense  and  heart :  and 
1  his  Narrative  adds  another  to  the  many  proofs  of  the  enormous 


2o6  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  power  of  Christianity  on  rude  minds.  Nothing  can  be  more 
'  chaotic,  that  is  human  at  all,  than  the  notions  of  these  poor 
'  Blacks,  even  after  what  is  called  their  conversion  ;  but  the 
'  effect  is  produced.  They  do  adopt  pantaloons,  and  abandon 
'  polygamy  ;  and  I  suppose  will  soon  have  newspapers  and  lite- 
'  rary  soirees.' 


CHAPTER  V. 

DISASTER  ON  DISASTER. 

DURING  all  these  years  of  struggle  and  wayfaring,  his  Father's 
household  at  Knightsbridge  had  stood  healthful,  happy,  increas- 
ing in  wealth,  free  diligence,  solidity  and  honest  prosperity  ;  a 
fixed  sunny  islet,  towards  which,  in  all  his  voyagings  and  over- 
clouded roamings,  he  could  look  with  satisfaction,  as  to  an  ever- 
open  port  of  refuge. 

The  elder  Sterling,  after  many  battles,  had  reached  his  field 
of  conquest  in  these  years  ;  and  was  to  be  regarded  as  a  victo- 
rious man.  Wealth  sufficient,  increasing  not  diminishing,  had 
rewarded  his  labours  in  the  Times,  which  were  now  in  their  full 
flower  ;  he  had  influence  of  a  sort ;  went  busily  among  busy 
public  men  ;  and  enjoyed,  in  the  questionable  form  attached  to 
journalism  and  anonymity,  a  social  consideration  and  position 
which  were  abundantly  gratifying  to  him.  A  singular  figure  of 
the  epoch  ;  and  when  you  came  to  know  him,  which  it  was  easy 
to  fail  of  doing  if  you  had  not  eyes  and  candid  insight,  a  gallant, 
truly  gifted,  and  manful  figure,  of  his  kind.  We  saw  much  of 
him  in  this  house  ;  much  of  all  his  family  ;  and  had  grown  to 
love  them  all  right  well, — him  too,  though  that  was  the  difficult 
part  of  the  feat.  For  in  his  Irish  way  he  played  the  conjuror 
very  much, — "three-hundred  and  sixty-five  opinions  in  the  year 
upon  every  subject,"  as  a  wag  once  said.  In  fact  his  talk,  ever 
ingenious,  emphatic  and  spirited  in  detail,  was  much  defective 
in  earnestness,  at  least  in  clear  earnestness,  of  purport  and  out- 
come ;  but  went  tumbling  as  if  in  mere  welters  of  explosive 
unreason  ;  a  volcano  heaving  under  vague  deluges  of  scOri?e, 
ashes  and  imponderous  pumice-stones,  you  could  not  say  in 
what  direction,  nor  well  whether  in  any.  Not  till  after  good 
study  did  you  see  the  deep  molten  lava-flood,  which  simmered 


DISASTER  ON  DISASTER.  207 

Steadily  enough,  and  showed  very  well  by  and  by  whither  it  was 
bound.  For  I  must  say  of  Edward  Sterling,  after  all  his  daily 
explosive  sophistries,  and  fallacies  of  talk,  he  had  a  stubborn 
instinctive  sense  of  what  was  manful,  strong  and  worthy  ;  recog- 
nised, with  quick  feeling,  the  charlatan  under  his  solemnest  wig; 
knew  as  clearly  as  any  man  a  pusillanimous  tailor  in  buckram, 
an  ass  under  the  lion's  skin,  and  did  with  his  whole  heart  de- 
spise the  same. 

The  sudden  changes  of  doctrine  in  the  Times,  which  failed 
not  to  excite  loud  censure  and  indignant  amazement  in  those 
days,  were  first  intelligible  to  you  when  you  came  to  interpret 
them  as  his  changes.  These  sudden  whirls  from  east  to  west  on 
his  part,  and  total  changes  of  party  and  articulate  opinion  at  a 
day's  warning,  lay  in  the  nature  of  the  man,  and  could  not  be 
helped  ;  products  of  his  fiery  impatience,  of  the  combined  im- 
petuosity and  limitation  of  an  intellect,  which  did  nevertheless 
continually  gravitate  towards  what  was  loyal,  true  and  right  on 
all  manner  of  subjects.  These,  a's  I  define  them,  were  the  mere 
scoriae  and  pumice  wreck  of  a  steady  central  lava-flood,  which 
truly  was  volcanic  and  explosive  to  a  strange  degree,  but  did 
rest  as  few  others  on  the  grand  fire-depths  of  the  world.  Thus, 
if  he  stormed  along,  ten  thousand  strong,  in  the  time  of  the 
Reform  Bill,  indignantly  denouncing  Toryism  and  its  obsolete 
insane  pretensions  ;  artd  then  if,  after  some  experience  of 
Whig  management,  he  discerned  that  Wellington  and  Peel,  by 
whatever  name  entitled,  were  the  men  to  be  depended  on  by 
England, — there  lay  in  all  this,  visible  enough,  a  deeper  con- 
sistency far  more  important  than  the  superficial  one,  so  much 
clamoured  after  by  the  vulgdr.  Which  is  the  libn's-skin  ;  which 
is  the  real  lion  ?  Let  a  mari,  if  he  is  prudent,  ascertain  that 
before  speaking  ; — but  above  and  beyond  all  things,  let  him 
ascertain  it,  and  stand  valiantly  to  it  when  ascertained  !  In 
the  latter  essential  part  of  the  operation  Edward  Sterling  was 
honourably  successful  to  a  really  marked  degree ;  in  the  former, 
or  prudential  part,  vefy  much  the  reverse,  as  his  history  in 
the  Journalistic  department  at  least,  was  continually  teaching 
him. 

An  amazingly  impetuous,  hasty,  explosive  man,  this  "  Cap- 
tain Whirlwind,"  as  I  Used  to  call  him  !  Great  sensibility  lay  in 
him,  too  ;  a  real  sympathy,  and  affectionate  pity  and  softliess, 


208  JOHN  STERLING. 

which  he  had  an  over-tendency  to  express  even  by  tears, — a  sin- 
gular sight  in  so  leonine  a  man.  Enemies  called  them  maudlin 
and  hypocritical,  these  tears  ;  but  that  was  nowise  the  com- 
plete account  of  them.  On  the  whole,  there  did  conspicuously 
lie  a  dash  of  ostentation,  a  self-consciousness  apt  to  become 
loud  and  braggart,  over  all  he  said  and  did  and  felt :  this  was 
the  alloy  of  the  man,  and  you  had  to  be  thankful  for  the  abun- 
dant gold  along  with  it. 

Quizzing  enough  he  got  among  us  for  all  this,  and  for  the 
singular  chiaroscuro  manner  of  procedure,  like  that  of  an  Archi- 
magus  Cagliostro,  or  Kaiser  Joseph  Incognito,  which  his  anony- 
mous known-unknown  thunderings  in  the  Times  necessitated 
in  him  ;  and  much  we  laughed, — not  without  explosive  counter- 
banterings  on  his  part  ; — but,  in  fine,  one  could  not  do  without 
him  ;  one  knew  him  at  heart  for  a  right  brave  man.  "  By  Jove, 
sir  !"  thus  he  would  swear  to  you,  with  radiant  face  ;  sometimes, 
not  often,  by  a  deeper  oath.  With  persons  of  dignity,  especially 
with  women,  to  whom  he  was  always  very  gallant,  he  had  courtly 
delicate  manners,  verging  towards  the  wiredrawn  and  elaborate ; 
on  common  occasions,  he  bloomed-out  at  once  into  jolly  famili- 
arity of  the  gracefully-boisterous  kind,  reminding  you  of  mess- 
rooms  and  old  Dublin  days.  His  offhand  mode  of  speech  was 
always  precise,  emphatic,  ingenious  :  his  laugh,  which  was  fre- 
quent rather  than  otherwise,  had  a  sincerity  of  banter,  but  no 
real  depth  of  sense  for  the  ludicrous  ;  and  soon  ended,  if  it 
grew  too  loud,  in  a  mere  dissonant  scream.  He  was  broad,  well- 
built,  stout  of  stature  ;  had  a  long  lowish  head,  sharp  gray  eyes, 
with  large  strong  aquiline  face  to  match  ;  and  walked,  or  sat, 
in  an  erect  decisive  manner.  A  remarkable  man ;  and  playing, 
especially  in  those  years  1830-40,  a  remarkable  part  in  the 
world. 

For  it  may  be  said,  the  emphatic,  big-voiced,  always  influ- 
ential and  often  strongly  unreasonable  Times  Newspaper  was 
the  express  emblem  of  Edward  Sterling  ;  he,  more  than  any 
other  man  or  circumstance,  was  the  Times  Newspaper,  and 
thundered  through  it  to  the  shaking  of  the  spheres.  And  let  us 
assert  withal  that  his  and  its  influence,  in  those  days,  was  not 
ill-grounded  but  rather  well ;  that  the  loud  manifold  unreason, 
often  enough  vituperated  and  groaned  over,  was  of  the  surface 
mostly ;  that  his  conclusions,  unreasonable,  partial,  hasty  as 


DISASTER  ON  DISASTER.  209 

they  might  at  first  be,  gravitated  irresistibly  towards  the  right : 
in  virtue  of  which  grand  quality  indeed,  the  root  of  all  good 
insight  in  man,  his  Times  oratory  found  acceptance,  and  influ- 
ential audience,  amid  the  loud  whirl  of  an  England  itself  logic- 
ally very  stupid,  and  wise  chiefly  by  instinct. 

England  listened  to  this  voice,  as  all  might  observe  ;  and 
to  one  who  knew  England  and  it,  the  result  was  not  quite  a 
strange  one,  and  was  honourable  rather  than  otherwise  to  both 
parties.  A  good  judge  of  men's  talents  has  been  heard  to  say 
of  Edward  Sterling:  "There  is  not  a  faculty  of  improvising 
"  equal  to  this  in  all  my  circle.  Sterling  rushes  out  into  the 
"  clubs,  into  London  society,  rolls  about  all  day,  copiously  talk- 
"  ing  modish  nonsense  or  sense,  and  listening  to  the  like,  with 
"  the  multifarious  miscellany  of  men  ;  comes  home  at  night ; 
"  redacts  it  into  a  Times  Leader, — and  is  found  to  have  hit  the 
"  essential  purport  of  the  world's  immeasurable  babblement  that 
"  day,  with  an  accuracy  beyond  all  other  men.  This  is  what 
"  the  multifarious  Babel  sound  did  mean  to  say  in  clear  words; 
"  this,  more  nearly  than  anything  else.  Let  the  most  gifted 
"  intellect,  capable  of  writing  epics,  try  to  write  such  a  Leader 
"  for  the  Morning  Newspapers  !  No  intellect  but  Edward  Ster- 
"  ling's  can  do  it.  An  improvising  faculty  without  parallel  in 
"  my  experience." — In  this  'improvising  faculty,'  much  more 
nobly  developed,  as  well  as  in  other  faculties  and  qualities  with 
unexpectedly  new  and  improved  figure,  John  Sterling,  to  the  ac- 
curate observer,  showed  himself  very  much  the  son  of  Edward. 

Connected  with  this  matter,  a  remarkable  Note  has  come 
into  my  hands ;  honourable  to  the  man  I  am  writing  of,  and  in 
some  sort  to  another  higher  man  ;  which,  as  it  may  now  (un- 
happily for  us  all)  be  published  without  scruple,  I  will  not  with- 
hold here.  The  support,  by  Edward  Sterling  and  the  Times,  of 
Sir  Robert  Peel's  first  Ministry,  and  generally  of  Peel's  states- 
manship, was  a  conspicuous  fact  in  its  day  ;  but  the  return  it 
met  with  from  the  person  chiefly  interested  may  be  considered 
well  worth  recording.  The  following  Letter,  after  meandering 
through  I  know  not  what  intricate  conduits,  and  consultations 
of  the  Mysterious  Entity  whose  address  it  bore,  came  to  Edward 
Sterling,  as  the  real  flesh-and-blood  proprietor,  and  has  been 
found  among  his  papers.  It  is  marked  Private : 


210  JOHN  STERLING. 

1  (Private)  71?  the  Editor  of  the  Times. 

'  Whitehall,  i8th  April  1835. 

'  SIR,  —  Having  this  day  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the 
'  King  the  Seals  of  Office,  I  can,  without  any  imputation  of  an 
1  interested  motive,  or  any  impediment  from  scrupulous  feelings 
'  of  delicacy,  express  my  deep  sense  of  the  powerful  support. 
'  which  that  Government  over  which  I  had  the  honour  to  prc- 
'  side  received  from  the  Times  Newspaper. 

' If  I  do  not  offer  the  expressions  of  personal  gratitude,  it 
'  is  because  I  feel  that  such  expressions  would  do  injustice  to 
1  the  character  of  a  support  which  was  given  exclusively  on  the 
'  highest  and  most  independent  grounds  of  public  principle.  I 
'  can  say  this  with  perfect  truth,  as  I  am  addressing  one  whose 
'  person  even  is  unknown  to  me,  and  who  during  my  tenure  of 
'  power  studiously  avoided  every  species  of  intercourse  which 
'  could  throw  a  suspicion  upon  the  motives  by  which  he  was 
'  actuated.  I  should,  however,  be  doing  injustice  to  my  own 
1  feelings,  if  I  were  to  retire  from  Office  without  one  word  of 
'  acknowledgment ;  without  at  least  assuring  you  of  the  admir- 
'  ation  with  which  I  witnessed,  during  the  arduous  contest  in 
'  which  I  was  engaged,  the  daily  exhibition  of  that  extraordinary 
'  ability  to  which  I  was  indebted  for  a  support,  the  more  valu- 
'  able  because  it  was  an  impartial  and  discriminating  support. 
'  — I  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir, — Ever  your  most  obedient 
'  and  faithful  servant,  ROBERT  PEEL.' 

To  which,  with  due  loftiness  and  diplomatic  gravity  and 
brevity,  there  is  Answer,  Draught  of  Answer  in  Edward  Ster- 
ling's hand,  from  the  Mysterious  Entity  so  honoured,  in  the 
following  terms  : 

•  To  the  Right  Hon.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Bart.  &>c.  &c.  &»c. 

•  '  SIR, — It  gives  me  sincere  satisfaction  to  learn  from  the 
'  Letter  with  which  you  have  honoured  me,  bearing  yesterday's 
'  date,  that  you  estimate  so  highly  the  efforts  which  have  been 
'  made  during  the  last  five  months  by  the  Times  Newspaper  to 
'  support  the  cause  of  rational  and  wholesome  Government 
'  which  his  Majesty  had  intrusted  to  your  guidance  ;  and  that 
'  you  appreciate  fairly  the  disinterested  motive,  of  regard  to  the 


DISASTER  ON  DISASTER.  21 1 

'  public  welfare,  and  to  that  alone,  through  which  this  Journal 
'  has  been  prompted  to  pursue  a  policy  in  accordance  with  that 
'  of  your  Administration.  It  is,  permit  me  to  say,  by  such 
'  motives  only,  that  the  Times,  ever  since  I  have  known  it,  has 
'  been  influenced,  whether  in  defence  of  the  Government  of  the 
'  day,  or  in  constitutional  resistance  to  it  :  and  indeed  there 
'  exist  no  other  motives  of  action  for  a  Journalist,  compatible 
'  either  with  the  safety  of  the  press,  or  with  the  political  mo- 
'  rality  of  the  great  bulk  of  its  readers. — With  much  respect,  I 
'  have  the  honour  to  be,  Sir,  £c.  &c.  &c. 

'  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  "  TIMES."  ' 

Of  this  Note  I  do  not  think  there  was  the  least  whisper 
during  Edward  Sterling's  lifetime  ;  which  fact  also  one  likes  to 
remember  of  him,  so  ostentatious  and  little-reticent  a  man.  For 
the  rest,  his  loyal  admiration  of  Sir  Robert  Peel, — sanctioned, 
and  as  it  were  almost  consecrated  to  his  mind,  by  the  great 
example  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  whom  he  reverenced  always 
with  true  hero-worship, — was  not  a  journalistic  one,  but  a  most 
intimate  authentic  feeling,  sufficiently  apparent  in  the  very  heart 
of  his  mind.  Among  the  many  opinions  '  liable  to  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five  changes  in  the  course  of  the  year,'  this  in 
reference  to  Peel  and  Wellington  was  one  which  never  changed, 
but  was  the  same  all  days  and  hours.  To  which,  equally  genu- 
ine, and  coming  still  oftener  to  light  in  those  times,  there  might 
one  other  be  added,  one  and  hardly  more  :  fixed  contempt,  not 
unmingled  with  detestation,  for  Daniel  O'Connell.  This  latter 
feeling,  we  used  often  laughingly  to  say,  was  his  grand  political 
principle,  the  one  firm  centre  where  all  else  went  revolving. 
But  internally  the  other  also  was  deep  and  constant ;  and  in- 
deed these  were  properly  his  two  centres, — poles  of  the  same 
axis,  negative  and  positive,  the  one  presupposing  the  other. 

O'Connell  he  had  known  in  young  Dublin  days  ; — and 
surely  no  man  could  well  venerate  another  less  !  It  was  his 
deliberate,  unalterable  opinion  of  the  then  Great  O,  that  good 
would  never  come  oT  him  ;  that  only  mischief,  and  this  in  huge 
measure,  would  come.  That  however  showy,  and  adroit  in 
rhetoric  and  management,  he  was  a  man  of  incurably  common- 
place intellect,  and  of  no  character  but  a  hollow,  blustery,  pusil- 
lanimous and  unsound  one  ;  great  only  in  maudlin  patriotisms, 


212  JOHN  STERLING. 

in  speciosities,  astucities, — in  the  miserable  gifts  for  becoming 
Chief  Demagogos,  Leader  of  a  deep-sunk  Populace  towards  its 
Lands  of  Promise  ;  which  trade,  in  any  age  or  country,  and 
especially  in  the  Ireland  of  this  age,  our  indignant  friend  re- 
garded (and  with  reason)  as  an  extremely  ugly  one  for  a  man. 
He  had  himself  zealously  advocated  Catholic  Emancipation,  and 
was  not  without  his  Irish  patriotism,  very  different  from  the 
Orange  sort ;  but  the  '  Liberator'  was  not  admirable  to  him, 
and  grew  daily  less  so  to  an  extreme  degree.  Truly,  his  scorn 
of  the  said  Liberator,  now  riding  in  supreme  dominion  on  the 
wings  of  blarney,  devil-ward  of  a  surety,  with  the  Liberated  all 
following  and  huzzaing  ;  his  fierce  gusts  of  wrath  and  abhor- 
rence over  him, — rose  occasionally  almost  to  the  sublime.  We 
laughed  often  at  these  vehemences  : — and  they  were  not  wholly 
laughable  ;  there  was  something  very  serious,  and  very  true,  in 
them !  This  creed  of  Edward  Sterling's  would  not  now,  in  either 
pole  of  its  axis,  look  so  strange  as  it  then  did  in  many  quarters. 

During  those  ten  years  which  might  be  defined  as  the  cul- 
minating period  of  Edward  Sterling's  life,  his  house  at  South 
Place,  Knightsbridge,  had  worn  a  gay  and  solid  aspect,  as  if 
built  at  last  on  the  high  tableland  of  sunshine  and  success,  the 
region  of  storms  and  dark  weather  now  all  victoriously  traversed 
and  lying  safe  below.  Health,  work,  wages,  whatever  is  need- 
ful to  a  man,  he  had,  in  rich  measure  ;  and  a  frank  stout  heart 
to  guide  the  same  :  he  lived  in  such  style  as  pleased  him ;  drove 
his  own  chariot  up  and  down  (himself  often  acting  as  Jehu,  and 
reminding  you  a  little  of  Times  thunder  even  in  driving)  ;  con- 
sorted, after  a  fashion,  with  the  powerful  of  the  world  ;  saw  in 
due  vicissitude  a  miscellany  of  social  faces  round  him, — plea- 
sant parties,  which  he  liked  well  enough  to  garnish  by  a  lord  ; 
"  Irish  lord,  if  no  better  might  be,"  as  the  banter  went.  For 
the  rest,  he  loved  men  of  worth  and  intellect,  and  recognised 
them  well,  whatever  their  title  :  this  was  his  own  patent  of 
worth  which  Nature  had  given  him ;  a  central  light  in  the  man, 
which  illuminated  into  a  kind  of  beauty,  serious  or  humorous, 
all  the  artificialities  he  had  accumulated  on  the  surface  of  him. 
So  rolled  his  days,  not  quietly,  yet  prosperously,  in  manifold 
commerce  with  men.  At  one  in  the  morning,  when  all  had 
vanished  into  sleep,  his  lamp  was  kindled  in  his  library ;  and 


DISASTER  ON  DISASTER.  213 

there,  twice  or  thrice  a  week,  for  a  three-hours  space,  he  launched 
his  bolts,  which  next  morning  were  to  shake  the  high  places  ol 
the  world. 

John's  relation  to  his  Father,  when  one  saw  John  here,  was 
altogether  frank,  joyful  and  amiable  :  he  ignored  the  Times 
thunder  for  most  part,  coldly  taking  the  Anonymous  for  non- 
extant  ;  spoke  of  it  floutingly,  if  he  spoke  at  all :  indeed  a  plea- 
sant half-bantering  dialect  was  the  common  one  between  Father 
and  Son  ;  and  they,  especially  with  the  gentle,  simple-hearted, 
just-minded  Mother  for  treble-voice  between  them,  made  a  very 
pretty  glee-harmony  together. 

So  had  it  lasted,  ever  since  poor  John's  voyagings  began  ; 
his  Father's  house  standing  always  as  a  fixed  sunny  islet  with 
safe  harbour  for  him.  So  it  could  not  always  last.  This  sunny 
islet  was  now  also  to  break  and  go  down  :  so  many  firm  islets, 
fixed  pillars  in  his  fluctuating  world,  pillar  after  pillar,  were  to 
break  and  go  down  ;  till  swiftly  all,  so  to  speak,  were  sunk  in 
the  dark  waters,  and  he  with  them  !  Our  little  History  is  now 
hastening  to  a  close. 

In  the  beginning  of  1 843  news  reached  us  that  Sterling 
had,  in  his  too  reckless  way,  encountered  a  dangerous  accident : 
maids,  in  the  room  where  he  was,  were  lifting  a  heavy  table  ; 
he,  seeing  them  in  difficulty,  had  snatched  at  the  burden ;  heaved 
it  away, — but  had  broken  a  bloodvessel  by  the  business  ;  and 
was  now,  after  extensive  hemorrhage,  lying  dangerously  ill. 
The  doctors  hoped  the  worst  was  over  ;  but  the  case  was  evi- 
dently serious.  In  the  same  days,  too,  his  Mother  had  been 
seized  here  by  some  painful  disease,  which  from  its  continuance 
grew  alarming.  Sad  omens  for  Edward  Sterling,  who  by  this 
time  had  as  good  as  ceased  writing  or  working  in  the  Times, 
having  comfortably  winded-up  his  affairs  there  ;  and  was  look- 
ing forward  to  a  freer  idle  life  befitting  his  advanced  years 
henceforth.  Fatal  eclipse  had  fallen  over  that  household  of  his ; 
never  to  be  lifted  off  again  till  all  darkened  into  night. 

By  dint  of  watchful  nursing,  John  Sterling  got  on  foot  once 
more :  but  his  Mother  did  not  recover,  quite  the  contrary.  Her 
case  too  grew  very  questionable.  Disease  of  the  heart,  said 
the  medical  men  at  last ;  not  immediately,  not  perhaps  for  a 
length  of  years,  dangerous  to  life,  said  they  ;  but  without  hope 


214  JOHN  STERLING. 

of  cure.  The  poor  lady  suffered  much  ;  and,  though  affecting 
hope  always,  grew  weaker  and  weaker.  John  ran  up  to  Town 
in  March  ;  I  saw  him,  on  the  morrow  or  next  day  after,  in  his 
own  room  at  Knightsbridge :  he  had  caught  fresh  cold  overnight, 
the  servant  having  left  his  window  up,  but  I  was  charged  to  say 
nothing  of  it,  not  to  flutter  the  already  troubled  house :  he  was 
going  home  again  that  very  day,  and  nothing  ill  would  come  of 
it.  We  understood  the  family  at  Falmouth,  his  Wife  being  now 
near  her  confinement  again,  could  at  any  rate  comport  with  no 
long  absence.  He  was  cheerful,  even  rudely  merry ;  himself  pale 
and  ill,  his  poor  Mother's  cough  audible  occasionally  through 
the  wall.  Very  kind,  too,  and  gracefully  affectionate  ;  but  I 
observed  a  certain  grimness  in  his  mood  of  mind,  and  under 
his  light  laughter  lay  something  unusual,  something  stern,  as  if 
already  dimmed  in  the  coming  shadows  of  Fate.  "  Yes,  yes, 
"  you  are  a  good  man:  but  I  understand  they  mean  to  appoint 
"  you  to  Rhadamanthus's  post,  which  has  been  vacant  for 
"  some  time  ;  and  you  will  see  how  you  like  that !"  This  was 
one  of  the  things  he  said  ;  a  strange  effulgence  of  wild  drollery 
flashing  through  the  ice  of  earnest  pain  and  sorrow.  He  looked 
paler  than  usual :  almost  for  the  first  time,  I  had  myself  a  twinge 
of  misgiving  as  to  his  own  health ;  for  hitherto  I  had  been  used 
to  blame  as  much  as  pity  his  fits  of  dangerous  illness,  and  would 
often  angrily  remonstrate  with  him  that  he  might  have  excellent 
health,  would  he  but  take  reasonable  care  of  himself,  and  learn 
the  art  of  sitting  still.  Alas,  as  if  he  could  learn  it;  as  if  Nature 
had  not  laid  her  ban  on  him  even  there,  and  said  in  smiles  and 
frowns  manifoldly,  "  No,  that  thou  shalt  not  learn  !" 

He  went  that  day ;  he  never  saw  his  good  true  Mother  more. 
Very  shortly  afterwards,  in  spite  of  doctors'  prophecies,  and 
affectionate  illusions,  she  grew  alarmingly  and  soon  hopelessly 
worse.  Here  are  his  last  two  Letters  to  her  : 

'  To  Mrs.  Sterling,  Knightsbridge,  London. 

'  Falmouth,  8th  April  1843. 

'  DEAREST  MOTHER, — I  could  do  you  no  good,  but  it  would 
'  be  the  greatest  comfort  to  me  if  I  could  be  near  you.  Nothing 
'  would  detain  me  but  Susan's  condition.  I  feel  that  until  her 
'  confinement  is  over,  I  ought  to  remain  here, — unless  you 
'  wished  me  to  go  to  you  ;  in  which  case  she  would  be  the  first 


DISASTER  ON  DISASTER.  215 

'  to  send  me  off.  Happily  she  is  doing  as  well  as  possible, 
'  and  seems  even  to  gain  strength  every  day.  She  sends  her 
'  love  to  you. 

'  The  children  are  all  doing  well.  I  rode  with  Edward  to- 
'  day  through  some  of  the  pleasant  lanes  in  the  neighbourhood; 
'  and  was  delighted,  as  I  have  often  been  at  the  same  season, 
'  to  see  the  primroses  under  every  hedge.  It  is  pleasant  to 
'  think  that  the  Maker  of  them  can  make  other  flowers  for  the 
1  gardens  of  his  other  mansions.  We  have  here  a  softness  in 
'  the  air,  a  smoothness  of  the  clouds,  and  a  mild  sunshine,  that 
'  combine  in  lovely  peace  with  the  first  green  of  spring  and  the 
'  mellow  whiteness  of  the  sails  upon  the  quiet  sea.  The  whole 
'  aspect  of  the  world  is  full  of  a  quiet  harmony,  that  influences 
'  even  one's  bodily  frame,  and  seems  to  make  one's  very  limbs 
'  aware  of  something  living,  good  and  immortal  in  all  around 
'  us.  Knowing  how  you  suffer,  and  how  weak  you  are,  anything 
'  is  a  blessing  to  me  that  helps  me  to  rise  out  of  confusion  and 
'  grief  into  the  sense  of  God  and  joy.  I  could  not  indeed  but 
'  feel  how  much  happier  I  should  have  been,  this  morning,  had 
'  you  been  with  me,  and  delighting  as  you  would  haVe  done  in 
'  all  the  little  as  well  as  the  large  beauty  of  the  world.  But  it 
'  was  still  a  satisfaction  to  feel  how  much  I  owe  to  you  of  the 
'  power  of  perceiving  meaning,  reality  and  sweetness  in  all 
'  healthful  life.  And  thus  I  could  fancy  that  you  were  still  near 
'  me  ;  and  that  I  could  see  you,  as  1  have  so  often  seen  you, 
'  looking  with  earnest  eyes  at  wayside  flowers. 

'  I  would  rather  not  have  written  what  must  recall  your 
'  thoughts  to  your  present  sufferings :  but,  dear  Mother,  I  wrote 
'  only  what  I  felt ;  and  perhaps  you  would  rather  have  it  so, 
'  than  that  I  should  try  to  find  other  topics.  I  still  hope  to  be 
'  with  you  before  long.  Meanwhile  and  always,  God  bless  you, 
'  is  the  prayer  of — Your  affectionate  son, 

'JOHN  STERLING.' 

To  the  same. 

'  Falmouth,  I2th  April  1843. 

'  DEAREST  MOTHER, — I  have  just  received  my  Father's  Let- 
'  ter  ;  which  gives  me  at  least  the  comfort  of  believing  that  you 
'  do  not  suffer  very  much  pain.  That  your  mind  has  remained 
'  so  clear  and  strong,  is  an  infinite  blessing. 


216  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  I  do  not  know  anything  in  the  world  that  would  make  up 
'  to  me  at  all  for  wanting  the  recollection  of  the  days  I  spent 
'  with  you  lately,  when  I  was  amazed  at  the  freshness  and  life 
'  of  all  your  thoughts.  It  brought  back  far-distant  years,  in  the 
'  strangest,  most  peaceful  way.  I  felt  myself  walking  with  you 
'  in  Greenwich  Park,  and  on  the  seashore  at  Sandgate ;  almost 
'  even  I  seemed  a  baby,  with  you  bending  over  me.  Dear 
'  Mother,  there  is  surely  something  uniting  us  that  cannot  perish. 
'  I  seem  so  sure  of  a  love  which  shall  last  and  reunite  us,  that 
'  even  the  remembrance,  painful  as  that  is,  of  all  my  own  follies 
'  and  ill  tempers,  cannot  shake  this  faith.  When  I  think  of 
'  you,  and  know  how  you  feel  towards  me,  and  have  felt  for 
'  every  moment  of  almost  forty  years,  it  would  be  too  dark  to 
'  believe  that  we  shall  never  meet  again.  It  was  from  you  that 
'  I  first  learnt  to  think,  to  feel,  to  imagine,  to  believe  ;  and  these 
'  powers,  which  cannot  be  extinguished,  will  one  day  enter  anew 
'  into  communion  with  you.  I  have  bought  it  very  dear  by  the 
'  prospect  of  losing  you  in  this  world, — but  since  you  have  been 
'  so  ill,  everything  has  seemed  to  me  holier,  loftier  and  more 
'  lasting,  more  full  of  hope  and  final  joy. 

'  It  would  be  a  very  great  happiness  to  see  you  once  more 
'  even  here  ;  but  I  do  not  know  if  that  will  be  granted  to  me. 
'  But  for  Susan's  state,  I  should  not  hesitate  an  instant ;  as  it 
'  is,  my  duty  seems  to  be  to  remain,  and  I  have  no  right  to 
'  repine.  There  is  no  sacrifice  that  she  would  not  make  for  me, 
4  and  it  would  be  too  cruel  to  endanger  her  by  mere  anxiety  on 
'  my  account.  Nothing  can  exceed  her  sympathy  with  my  sor- 
'  row.  But  she  cannot  know,  no  one  can,  the  recollections  of 
'  all  you  have  been  and  done  for  me  ;  which  now  are  the  most 
'  sacred  and  deepest,  as  well  as  most  beautiful,  thoughts  that 
'  abide  with  me.  May  God  bless  you,  dearest  Mother.  It  is 
'  much  to  believe  that  He  feels  for  you  all  that  you  have  ever 
'  felt  for  your  children.  JOHN  STERLING.' 

A  day  or  two  after  this,  '  on  Good  Friday,  1843,'  his  Wife 
got  happily  through  her  confinement,  bringing  him,  he  writes, 
'  a  stout  little  girl,  who  and  the  Mother  are  doing  as  well  as 
'  possible.'  The  little  girl  still  lives  and  does  well ;  but  for  the 
Mother  there  was  another  lot.  Till  the  Monday  following  she  too 
did  altogether  well,  he  affectionately  watching  her ;  but  in  the 


DISASTER  ON   DISASTER.  217 

course  of  tliat  day,  some  change  for  the  worse  was  noticed, 
though  nothing  to  alarm  either  the  doctors  or  him;  he  watched 
by  her  bedside  all  night,  still  without  alarm  ;  but  sent  again  in 
the  morning,  Tuesday  morning,  for  the  doctors, — who  did  not 
seem  able  to  make  much  of  the  symptoms.  She  appeared  weak 
and  low,  but  made  no  particular  complaint.  The  London  post 
meanwhile  was  announced  ;  Sterling  went  into  another  room 
to  learn  what  tidings  of  his  Mother  it  brought  him.  Returning 
speedily  with  a  face  which  in  vain  strove  to  be  calm,  his  Wife 
asked,  How  at  Knightsbridgc  ?  "  My  Mother  is  dead,"  ans- 
wered Sterling  ;  "  died  on  Sunday  :  She  is  gone."  "  Poor  old 
man  !"  murmured  the  other,  thinking  of  old  Edward  Sterling 
now  left  alone  in  the  world  ;  and  these  were  her  own  last  words  : 
in  two  hours  more  she  too  was  dead.  In  two  hours  Mother  and 
Wife  were  suddenly  both  snatched  away  from  him. 

'  It  came  with  awful  suddenness  !'  writes  he  to  his  Clifton 
friend.  '  Still  for  a  short  time  I  had  my  Susan :  but  I  soon  saw 
'  that  the  medical  men  were  in  terror  ;  and  almost  within  half 
'  an  hour  of  that  fatal  Knightsbridge  news,  I  began  to  suspect 
'  our  own  pressing  danger.  I  received  her  last  breath  upon 
'  my  lips.  Her  mind  was  much  sunk,  and  her  perceptions  slow; 
'  but  a  few  minutes  before  the  last,  she  must  have  caught  the 
'  idea  of  dissolution  ;  and  signed  that  I  should  kiss  her.  She 
'  faltered  painfully,  "Yes  !  yes  !" — returned  with  fervency  the 
'  pressure  of  my  lips ;  and  in  a  few  moments  her  eyes  began  to 
'  fix,  her  pulse  to  cease.'  She  too  is  gone  from  me  !  It  was 
Tuesday  morning,  April  1 8th,  1843.  His  Mother  had  died  on 
the  Sunday  before. 

He  had  loved  his  excellent  kind  Mother,  as  he  ought  and 
well  might :  in  that  good  heart,  in  all  the  wanderings  of  his  own, 
there  had  ever  been  a  shrine  of  warm  pity,  of  mother's  love  and 
blessed  soft  affections  for  him  ;  and  now  it  was  closed  in  the 
Eternities  forevermore.  His  poor  Life-partner  too,  his  other 
self,  who  had  faithfully  attended  him  so  long  in  all  his  pilgrim- 
ings,  cheerily  footing  the  heavy  tortuous  ways  along  with  him, 
can  follow  him  no  farther  ;  sinks  now  at  his  side  :  "  The  rest 
oi  your  pilgrimings  alone,  O  Friend, — adieu,  adieu  !"  She  too 
is  forever  hidden  from  his  eyes  ;  and  he  stands,  on  the  sudden, 
very  solitary  amid  the  tumult  oi  fallen  and  tailing  things.  '  My 


2i8  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  little  baby  girl  is  doing  well ;  poor  little  wreck  cast  upon  the 
'  seabeach  of  life.  My  children  require  me  tenfold  now.  What 
'  I  shall  do,  is  all  confusion  and  darkness.' 

The  younger  Mrs.  Sterling  was  a  true  good  woman ;  loyal- 
hearted,  willing  to  do  well,  and  struggling  wonderfully  to  do  it 
amid  her  languors  and  infirmities  ;  rescuing,  in  many  ways, 
with  beautiful  female  heroism  and  adroitness,  what  of  fertility 
their  uncertain,  wandering,  unfertile  way  of  life  still  left  pos- 
sible, and  cheerily  making  the  most  of  it.  A  genial,  pious  and 
harmonious  fund  of  character  was  in  her  ;  and  withal  an  indo- 
lent, half-unconscious  force  of  intellect,  and  justness  and  deli- 
cacy of  perception,  which  the  casual  acquaintance  scarcely  gave 
her  credit  for.  Sterling  much  respected  her  decision  in  matters 
literary ;  often  altering  and  modifying  where  her  feeling  clearly 
went  against  him  ;  and  in  verses  especially  trusting  to  her  ear, 
which  was  excellent,  while  he  knew  his  own  to  be  worth  little. 
I  remember  her  melodious  rich  plaintive  tone  of  voice ;  and  an 
exceedingly  bright  smile  which  she  sometimes  had,  effulgent 
with  sunny  gaiety  and  true  humour,  among  other  fine  qualities. 

Sterling  has  lost  much  in  these  two  hours  ;  how  much  that 
has  long  been  can  never  again  be  for  him !  Twice  in  one  morn- 
ing, so  to  speak,  has  a  mighty  wind  smitten  the  corners  of  his 
house ;  and  much  lies  in  dismal  ruins  round  L!m. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
VENTNOR  :  DEATH! 

IN  this  sudden  avalanche  of  sorrows  Sterling,  weak  and 
worn  as  we  have  seen,  bore  up  manfully,  and  with  pious  valour 
fronted  what  had  come  upon  him.  He  was  not  a  man  to  yield 
to  vain  wailings,  or  make  repinings  at  the  unalterable  :  here 
was  enough  to  be  long  mourned  over  ;  but  here,  for  the  mo- 
ment, was  very  much  imperatively  requiring  to  be  done.  That 
evening,  he  called  his  children  round  him  ;  spoke  words  of 
religious  admonition  and  affection  to  them  ;  said,  "  He  must 
now  be  a  Mother  as  well  as  Father  to  them."  On  the  even- 
ing of  the  funeral,  writes  Mr.  Hare,  he  bade  them  good  night, 
adding  these  words,  "  If  I  am  taken  from  you,  God  will  take 


VENTNOR:  DEATH.  219 

care  of  you."  He  had  six  children  left  to  his  charge,  two  of 
them  infants ;  and  a  dark  outlook  ahead  of  them  and  him.  The 
good  Mrs.  Maurice,  the  children's  young  Aunt,  present  at  this 
time  and  often  afterwards  till  all  ended,  was  a  great  consolation. 

Falmouth,  it  may  be  supposed,  had  grown  a  sorrowful  place 
to  him,  peopled  with  haggard  memories  in  his  weak  state  ;  and 
now  again,  as  had  been  usual  with  him,  change  of  place  sug- 
gested itself  as  a  desirable  alleviation  ; — and  indeed,  in  some 
sort,  as  a  necessity.  He  has  'friends  here,'  he  admits  to  him- 
self, '  whose  kindness  is  beyond  all  price,  all  description  ;'  but 
his  little  children,  if  anything  befell  him,  have  no  relative  within 
two  hundred  miles.  He  is  now  sole  watcher  over  them  ;  and 
his  very  life  is  so  precarious ;  nay,  at  any  rate,  it  would  appear, 
he  has  to  leave  Falmouth  every  spring,  or  run  the  hazard  of 
worse.  Once  more,  what  is  to  be  done  ?  Once  more, — and 
now,  as  it  turned  out,  for  the  last  time. 

A  still  gentler  climate,  greater  proximity  to  London,  where 
his  Brother  Anthony  now  was  and  most  of  his  friends  and 
interests  were  :  these  considerations  recommended  Ventnor,  in 
the  beautiful  South-eastern  corner  of  the  Isle  of  Wight  ;  where 
on  inquiry  an  eligible  house  was  found  for  sale.  The  house  and 
its  surrounding  piece  of  ground,  improvable  both,  were  pur- 
chased ;  he  removed  thither  in  June  of  this  year  1 843  ;  and 
set  about  improvements  and  adjustments  on  a  frank  scale.  By 
the  decease  of  his  Mother,  he  had  become  rich  in  money ;  his 
share  of  the  West-India  properties  having  now  fallen  to  him, 
which,  added  to  his  former  incomings,  made  a  revenue  he  could 
consider  ample  and  abundant.  Falmouth  friends  looked  lovingly 
towards  him,  promising  occasional  visits  ;  old  Herstmonceux, 
which  he  often  spoke  of  revisiting  but  never  did,  was  not  far 
off ;  and  London,  with  all  its  resources  and  remembrances,  was 
now  again  accessible.  He  resumed  his  work  ;  and  had  hopes 
of  again  achieving  something. 

The  Poem  of  Cccitr-de-Lion  has  been  already  mentioned, 
and  the  wider  form  and  aim  it  had  got  since  he  first  took  it  in 
hand.  It  was  above  a  year  before  the  date  of  these  tragedies 
and  changes,  that  he  had  sent  me  a  Canto,  or  couple  of  Cantos, 
of  Ccsur-de-Lionj  loyally  again  demanding  my  opinion,  harsh 
as  it  had  often  been  on  that  side.  This  time  I  felt  right  glad 


220  JOHN  STERLING. 

to  answer  in  another  tone  :  "  That  here  was  real  felicity  and 
"  ingenuity,  on  the  prescribed  conditions;  a  decisively  rhythmic 
"  quality  in  this  composition  ;  thought  and  phraseology  actu- 
"  ally  dancing,  after  a  sort.  What  the  plan  and  scope  of  the 
"  Work  might  be,  he  had  not  said,  and  I  could  not  judge;  but 
"  here  was  a  light  opulence  of  airy  fancy,  picturesque  concep- 
"  tion,  vigorous  delineation,  all  marching  on  as  with  cheerful 
"  drum  and  fife,  if  without  more  rich  and  complicated  forms 
"  of  melody  :  if  a  man  worM  write  in  metre,  this  sure  enough 
"  was  the  way  to  try  doing  it."  For  such  encouragement  from 
that  stinted  quarter,  Sterling,  I  doubt  not,  was  very  thankful ; 
and  of  course  it  might  cooperate  with  the  inspirations  from  his 
Naples  Tour  to  further  him  a  little  in  this  his  now  chief  task 
in  the  way  of  Poetry ;  a  thought  which,  among  my  many  almost 
pathetic  remembrances  of  contradictions  to  his  Poetic  tendency, 
is  pleasant  for  me. 

But,  on  the  whole,  it  was  no  matter.  With  or  without  en- 
couragement, he  was  resolute  to  persevere  in  Poetry,  and  did 
persevere.  When  I  think  now  of  his  modest,  quiet  stedfastness 
in  this  business  of  Poetry ;  how,  in  spite  of  friend  and  foe,  he 
silently  persisted,  without  wavering,  in  the  form  of  utterance 
he  had  chosen  for  himself;  and  to  what  length  he  carried  it, 
and  vindicated  himself  against  us  all, — his  character  comes 
out  in  a  new  light  to  me,  with  more  of  a  certain  central  inflex- 
ibility and  noble  silent  resolution  than  I  had  elsewhere  noticed 
in  it.  This  summer,  moved  by  natural  feelings,  which  were 
sanctioned,  too,  and  in  a  sort  sanctified  to  him,  by  the  remem- 
bered counsel  of  his  late  Wife,  he  printed  the  Tragedy  of  Sir  af- 
ford. But  there  was  in  the  public  no  contradiction  to  the  hard 
vote  I  had  given  about  it :  the  little  Book  fell  dead-born  ;  and 
Sterling  had  again  to  take  his  disappointment; — which  it  must 
be  owned  he  cheerfully  did  ;  and,  resolute  to  try  it  again  and 
ever  again,  went  along  with  his  Cceur-de-Lton,  as  if  the  public 
had  been  all  with  him.  An  honourable  capacity  to  stand  single 
against  the  whole  world ;  such  as  all  men  need,  from  time  to 
time !  After  all,  who  knows  whether,  in  his  over-clouded,  broken, 
flighty  way  of  life,  incapable  of  long  hard  drudgery,  and  so  shut- 
out from  the  solid  forms  oi  Prose,  this  Poetic  Form,  which  he 
could  well  learn  as  he  could  all  iorms,  was  not  the  suitablest 
ior  him  ? 


VENTNOR:  DEATH.  221 

This  v/ork  of  Ccctir-dc-Lion  he  prosecuted  stedfastly  in  his 
new  home ;  and  indeed  employed  on  it  henceforth  all  the  avail- 
able days  that  were  left  him  in  this  world.  As  was  already  said, 
he  did  not  live  to  complete  it ;  but  some  eight  Cantos,  three  or 
four  of  which  I  know  to  possess  high  worth,  were  finished,  before 
Death  intervened,  and  there  he  had  to  leave  it.  Perhaps  it  will 
yet  be  given  to  the  public  ;  and  in  that  case  be  better  received 
than  the  others  were,  by  men  of  judgment;  and  serve  to  put 
Sterling's  Poetic  pretensions  on  a  much  truer  footing.  I  can 
say,  that  to  readers  who  do  prefer  a  poetic  diet,  this  ought  to 
be  welcome:  if  you  can  contrive  to  love  the  thing  which  is  still 
called  "poetry"  in  these  days,  here  is  a  decidedly  superior  article 
in  that  kind, — richer  than  one  of  a  hundred  that  you  smilingly 
consume. 

In  this  same  month  of  June  1843,  while  the  house  at  Vent- 
nor  was  getting  ready,  Sterling  was  again  in  London  for  a  few 
days.  Of  course  at  Knightsbridge,  now  fallen  under  such  sad 
change,  many  private  matters  needed  to  be  settled  by  his  Father 
and  Brother  and  him.  Captain  Anthony,  now  minded  to  remove 
with  his  family  to  London  and  quit  the  military  way  of  life,  had 
agreed  to  purchase  the  big  family  house,  which  he  still  occupies ; 
the  old  man,  now  rid  of  that  encumbrance,  retired  to  a  smaller 
establishment  of  his  own  ;— came  ultimately  to  be  Anthony's 
guest,  and  spent  his  last  days  so.  He  was  much  lamed  and 
broken,  the  half  of  his  old  life  suddenly  torn  away;— and  other 
losses,  which  he  yet  knew  not  of,  lay  close  ahead  of  him. 
In  a  year  or  two,  the  rugged  old  man,  borne  down  by  these 
pressures,  quite  gave  way  ;  sank  into  paralytic  and  other  in- 
firmities ;  and  was  released  from  life's  sorrows,  under  his  son 
Anthony's  roof,  in  the  fall  of  1847. — The  house  in  Knights- 
bridge  was,  at  the  time  we  now  speak  of,  empty  except  of 
servants  ;  Anthony  having  returned  to  Dublin,  I  suppose  to 
conclude  his  affairs  there,  prior  to  removal.  John  lodged  in  a 
Hotel. 

We  had  our  fair  share  of  his  company  in  this  visit,  as  in 
all  the  past  ones ;  but  the  intercourse,  I  recollect,  was  dim  and 
broken,  a  disastrous  shadow  hanging  over  it,  not  to  be  cleared 
away  by  effort.  Two  American  gentlemen,  acquaintances  also 
of  mine,  had  been  recommended  to  him,  by  Emerson  most  likely : 
one  morning  Sterling  appeared  here  with  a  strenuous  proposal 


222  JOHN  STERLING. 

that  we  should  come  to  Knightsbridge,  and  dine  with  him  and 
them.  Objections,  general  dissuasions  were  not  wanting:  The 
empty  dark  house,  such  needless  trouble,  and  the  like ; — but  he 
answered  in  his  quizzing  way,  "  Nature  herself  prompts  you, 
"  when  a  stranger  comes,  to  give  him  a  dinner.  There  are  ser- 
"  vants  yonder  ;  it  is  all  easy  ;  come  ;  both  of  you  are  bound 
"  to  come."  And  accordingly  we  went.  I  remember  it  as 
one  of  the  saddest  dinners  ;  though  Sterling  talked  copiously, 
and  our  friends,  Theodore  Parker  one  of  them,  were  pleasant 
and  distinguished  men.  All  was  so  haggard  in  one's  memory, 
and  half-consciously  in  one's  anticipations  ;  sad,  as  if  one  had 
been  dining  in  a  ruin,  in  the  crypt  of  a  mausoleum.  Our  con- 
versation was  waste  and  logical,  I  forget  quite  on  what,  not  joy- 
ful and  harmoniously  effusive  :  Sterling's  silent  sadness  was 
painfully  apparent  through  the  bright  mask  he  had  bound  him- 
self to  wear.  Withal  one  could  notice  now,  as  on  his  last  visit, 
a  certain  sternness  of  mood,  unknown  in  better  days  ;  as  if 
strange  gorgon-faces  of  earnest  Destiny  were  more  and  more 
rising  round  him,  and  the  time  for  sport  were  passed.  He  looked 
always  hurried,  abrupt,  even  beyond  wont ;  and  indeed  was,  I 
suppose,  overwhelmed  in  details  of  business. 

One  evening,  I  remember,  he  came  down  hither,  designing 
to  have  a  freer  talk  with  us.  We  were  all  sad  enough  ;  and 
strove  rather  to  avoid  speaking  of  what  might  make  us  sadder. 
Before  any  true  talk  had  been  got  into,  an  interruption  occurred, 
some  unwelcome  arrival ;  Sterling  abruptly  rose  ;  gave  me  the 
signal  to  rise  ;  and  we  unpolitely  walked  away,  adjourning  to  his 
Hotel,  which  I  recollect  was  in  the  Strand,  near  Hungerford 
Market ;  some  ancient  comfortable  quaint-looking  place,  off  the 
street ;  where,  in  a  good  warm  queer  old  room,  the  remainder 
of  our  colloquy  was  duly  finished.  We  spoke  of  Cromwell,  among 
other  things  which  I  have  now  forgotten  ;  on  which  subject 
Sterling  was  trenchant,  positive,  and  in  some  essential  points 
wrong, — as  I  said  I  would  convince  him  some  day.  "Well, 
well !"  answered  he,  with  a  shake  of  the  head. — We  parted  be- 
fore long  ;  bed-time  for  invalids  being  come  :  he  escorted  me 
down  certain  carpeted  backstairs,  and  would  not  be  forbidden : 
we  took  leave  under  the  dim  skies  ; — and  alas,  little  as  I  then 
dreamt  of  it,  this,  so  far  as  I  can  calculate,  must  have  been  the 
last  time  I  ever  saw  him  in  the  world.  Softly  as  a  common 


VENTNOR:  DEATH.  223 

evening,  the  last  of  the  evenings  had  passed  away,  and  no  other 
would  come  for  me  forevermore. 

Through  the  summer  he  was  occupied  with  fitting-up  his  new 
residence,  selecting  governesses,  servants;  earnestly  endeavour- 
ing to  set  his  house  in  order,  on  the  new  footing  it  had  now 
assumed.  Extensive  improvements  in  his  garden  and  grounds, 
in  which  he  took  due  interest  to  the  last,  were  also  going  on. 
His  Brother,  and  Mr.  Maurice  his  brother-in-law, — especially 
Mrs.  Maurice  the  kind  sister,  faithfully  endeavouring  to  be  as 
a  mother  to  her  poor  little  nieces, — were  occasionally  with  him. 
All  hours  available  for  labour  on  his  literary  tasks,  he  employed, 
almost  exclusively  I  believe,  on  Cceur-de-Lion;  with  what 
energy,  the  progress  he  had  made  in  that  Work,  and  in  the  art 
of  Poetic  composition  generally,  amid  so  many  sore  impedi- 
ments, best  testifies.  I  perceive,  his  life  in  general  lay  heavier 
on  him  than  it  had  done  before  ;  his  mood  of  mind  is  grown 
more  sombre  ; — indeed  the  very  solitude  of  this  Ventnor  as  a 
place,  not  to  speak  of  other  solitudes,  must  have  been  new  and 
depressing.  But  he  admits  no  hypochondria,  now  or  ever  ;  occa- 
sionally, though  rarely,  even  flashes  of  a  kind  of  wild  gaiety 
break  through.  He  works  steadily  at  his  task,  with  all  the 
strength  left  him  ;  endures  the  past  as  he  may  ;  and  makes  gal- 
lant front  against  the  world.  '  I  am  going  on  quietly  here,  rather 
'  than  happily,'  writes  he  to  his  friend  Newman;  'sometimes 
'  quite  helpless,  not  from  distinct  illness,  but  from  sad  thoughts 
1  and  a  ghastly  dreaminess.  The  heart  is  gone  out  of  my  life. 
'  My  children,  however,  are  doing  well ;  and  the  place  is  cheer- 
'  ful  and  mild.' 

From  Letters  of  this  period  I  might  select  some  melancholy 
enough  ;  but  will  prefer  to  give  the  following  one  (nearly  the 
last  I  can  give),  as  indicative  of  a  less  usual  temper  : 

'  To  Thomas  Carlyle,  Esq.,  Chelsea,  London. 

'  Yentnor,  7th  December  1843. 

'  MY  DEAR  CARLYLE, — My  Irish  Newspaper  was  not  meant 
'  as  a  hint  that  I  wanted  a  Letter.  It  contained  an  absurd  long 
'  Advertisement, — some  project  for  regenerating  human  know- 
'  ledge,  &c.  &c.  ;  to  which  I  prefixed  my  private  mark  (a  blot), 
'  thinking  that  you  might  be  pleased  to  know  of  a  fellow-la- 
'  bourer  somewhere  in  Tipperary. 


224  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  Your  Letter,  like  the  Scriptural  oil, — (they  had  no  patent 
'  lamps  then,  and  used  the  best  oil,  js.  per  gallon), — has  made 
'  my  face  to  shine.  There  is  but  one  person  in  the  world,  I 
'  shall  not  tell  you  who,  from  whom  a  Letter  would  give  me  so 
'  much  pleasure.  It  would  be  nearly  as  good  at  Pekin,  in  the 
•  centre  of  the  most  enlightened  Mandarins  ;  but  here  at  Vent- 
'  nor,  where  there  are  few  Mandarins  and  no  enlightenment, — 
'  fountains  in  the  wilderness,  even  were  they  miraculous,  are 
'  nothing  compared  with  your  handwriting.  Yet  it  is  sad  that 
'  you  should  be  so  melancholy.  I  often  think  that  though  Mer- 
'  cury  was  the  pleasanter  fellow,  and  probably  the  happier,  Sa- 
'  turn  was  the  greater  god  ; — rather  cannibal  or  so,  but  one 
'  excuses  it  in  him,  as  in  some  other  heroes  one  knows  of. 

'  It  is,  as  you  say,  your  destiny  to  write  about  Cromwell : 
'  and  you  will  make  a  book  of  him,  at  which  the  ears  of  our 
1  grandchildren  will  tingle  ; — and  as  one  may  hope  that  the  ears 
'  of  human  nature  will  be  growing  longer  and  longer,  the  ting- 
'  ling  will  be  proportionably  greater  than  we  are  accustomed  to. 
'  Do  what  you  can,  I  fear  there  will  be  little  gain  from  the  Roy- 
'  alists.  There  is  something  very  small  about  the  biggest  of  them 
'  that  I  have  ever  fallen  in  with,  unless  you  count  old  Hobbcs 
'  a  Royalist. 

'  Curious  to  see  that  you  have  them  exactly  preserved  in  the 
'  Country  Gentlemen  of  our  day ;  while  of  the  Puritans  not  a 
'  trace  remains  except  in  History.  Squirism  had  already,  in  that 
'  day,  become  the  caput  mortuuw  that  it  is  now  ;  and  has 
'  therefore,  like  other  mummies,  been  able  to  last.  What  was 
'  opposed  to  it  was  the  Life  of  Puritanism, — then  on  the  point 
'  of  disappearing  ;  and  it  too  has  left  its  mummy  at  Exeter  Hall 
'  on  the  platform  and  elsewhere.  One  must  go  back  to  the 
'  Middle  Ages  to  see  Squirism  as  rampant  and  vivacious  as 
'  Biblicism  was  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  :  and  I  suppose  our 
'  modern  Country  Gentlemen  are  about  as  near  to  what  the  old 
'  Knights  and  Barons  were  who  fought  the  Crusades,  as  our 
'  modern  Evangelicals  to  the  fellows  who  sought  the  Lord  by 
'  the  light  of  their  own  pistol-shots. 

'  Those  same  Crusades  are  now  pleasant  matter  for  me. 
'  You  remember,  or  perhaps  you  do  not,  a  thing  I  once  sent  you 
'  about  Cceur-de-Lion.  Long  since,  I  settled  to  make  the  Cantos 
'  you  saw  part  of  a  larger  Book  ;  and  worked  at  it,  last  autumn 


VENTNOR:  DEATH.  225 

'  and  winter,  till  I  had  a  bad  illness.  I  am  now  at  work  on  it 
'  again  ;  and  go  full  sail,  like  my  hero.  There  arc  six  Cantos 
'  done,  roughly,  besides  what  you  saw.  I  have  struck-out  most 
'  of  the  absurdest  couplets,  and  given  the  whole  a  higher  though 
'  still  sportive  tone.  It  is  becoming  a  kind  of  Odyssey,  with  a 
'  laughing  and  Christian  Achilles  for  hero.  One  may  manage 
'  to  wrap,  in  that  chivalrous  brocade,  many  things  belonging  to 
'  our  Time,  and  capable  of  interesting  it.  The  thing  is  not  bad  ; 
'  but  will  require  great  labour.  Only  it  is  labour  that  I  thor- 
'  oughly  like  ;  and  which  keeps  the  maggots  out  of  one's  brain, 
'  until  their  time. 

'  I  have  never  spoken  to  you,  never  been  able  to  speak  to 
'  you,  of  the  change  in  my  life, — almost  as  great,  one  fancies, 
'  as  one's  own  death.  Even  now,  although  it  seems  as  if  I  had 
'  so  much  to  say,  I  cannot.  If  one  could  imagine' — ••'  *  *  'But 
'  it  is  no  use  ;  I  cannot  write  wisely  on  this  matter.  I  suppose 
'  no  human  being  was  ever  devoted  to  another  more  entirely 
1  than  she  ; — and  that  makes  the  change  not  less  but  more 
'  bearable.  It  seems  as  if  she  could  not  be  gone  quite  ;  and  that 
'  indeed  is  my  faith. 

'  Mr.  James,  your  New-England  friend,  was  here  only  for  a 
'  few  days  ;  I  saw  him  several  times,  and  liked  him.  They  went, 
'  on  the  24th  of  last  month,  back  to  London, — or  so  purposed, 
'  — because  there  is  no  pavement  here  for  him  to  walk  on.  I 
'  want  to  know  where  he  is,  and  thought  I  should  be  able  to 
'  learn  from  you.  I  gave  him  a  Note  for  Mill,  who  perhaps  may 
'  have  seen  him.  I  think  this  is  all  at  present  from, — Yours, 

'JoiiN  STERLING.' 

Of  his  health,  all  this  while,  we  had  heard  little  definite  ; 
and  understood  that  he  was  very  quiet  and  careful  ;  in  virtue  of 
which  grand  improvement  we  vaguely  considered  all  others 
would  follow.  Once  let  him  learn  well  to  be  slow  as  the  common 
run  of  men  are,  would  not  all  be  safe  and  well?  Nor  through  the 
winter,  or  the  cold  spring  months,  did  bad  news  reach  us;  per- 
haps less  news  of  any  kind  than  had  been  usual,  which  seemed 
to  indicate  a  still  and  wholesome  way  of  life  and  work.  Not  till 
'April  4th,  1844,'  did  the  new  alarm  occur:  again  on  some 
slight  accident,  the  breaking  of  a  bloodvessel;  again  prostration 
under  dangerous  sickness,  from  which  this  time  he  never  rose. 

9. 


226  JOHN  STERLING. 

There  had  been  so  many  sudden  fallings  and  happy  risings 
again  in  our  poor  Sterling's  late  course  of  health,  we  had  grown 
so  accustomed  to  mingle  blame  of  his  impetuosity  with  pity  for 
his  sad  overthrows,  we  did  not  for  many  weeks  quite  realise  to 
ourselves  the  stern  fact  that  here  at  length  had  the  peculiar  fall 
come  upon  us, — the  last  of  all  these  falls  !  This  brittle  life, 
which  had  so  often  held  together  and  victoriously  rallied  under 
pressures  and  collisions,  could  not  rally  always,  and  must  one 
time  be  shivered.  It  was  not  till  the  summer  came  and  no  im- 
provement ;  and  not  even  then  without  lingering  glimmers  of 
hope  against  hope,  that  I  fairly  had  to  own  what  had  now  come, 
what  was  now  day  by  day  sternly  advancing  with  the  steadiness 
of  Time. 

From  the  first,  the  doctors  spoke  despondently  ;  and  Ster- 
ling himself  felt  well  that  there  was  no  longer  any  chance  of  life. 
He  had  often  said  so,  in  his  former  illnesses,  and  thought  so,  yet 
always  till  now  with  some  tacit  grain  of  counter-hope  ;  he  had 
never  clearly  felt  so  as  now  :  Here  is  the  end  ;  the  great  change 
is  now  here  ! — Seeing  how  it  was,  then,  he  earnestly  gathered 
all  his  strength  to  do  this  last  act  of  his  tragedy,  as  he  had 
striven  to  do  the  others,  in  a  pious  and  manful  manner.  As  I 
believe  we  can  say  he  did  ;  few  men  in  any  time  more  piously 
or  manfully.  For  about  six  months  he  sat  looking  stedfastly, 
at  all  moments,  into  the  eyes  of  Death  ;  he  too  who  had  eyes  to 
see  Death  and  the  Terrors  and  Eternities  ;  and  surely  it  was 
with  perfect  courage  and  piety,  and  valiant  simplicity  of  heart, 
that  he  bore  himself,  and  did  and  thought  and  suffered,  in  this 
trying  predicament,  more  terrible  than  the  usual  death  of  men. 
All  strength  left  to  him  he  still  employed  in  working  :  day  by 
day  the  end  came  nearer,  but  day  by  day  also  some  new  por- 
tion of  his  adjustments  was  completed,  by  some  small  stage  his 
task  was  nearer  done.  His  domestic  and  other  affairs,  of  all 
sorts,  he  settled  to  the  last  item.  Of  his  own  Papers  he  saved 
a  few,  giving  brief  pertinent  directions  about  them  ;  great  quan- 
tities, among  which  a  certain  Autobiography  begun  some  years 
ago  at  Clifton,  he  ruthlessly  burnt,  judging  that  the  best.  To 
his  friends  he  left  messages,  memorials  of  books  :  I  have  a 
Cough's  Camden,  and  other  relics,  which  came  to  me  in  that 
way,  and  are  among  my  sacred  possessions.  The  very  Letters 
of  his  friends  he  sorted  and  returned  ;  had  each  friend's  Letters 


VENTNOR:  DEATH.  227 

made  into  a  packet,  sealed  with  black,  and  duly  addressed  for 
delivery  when  the  time  should  come. 

At  an  early  period  of  his  illness,  all  visitors  had  of  course 
been  excluded,  except  his  most  intimate  ones  :  before  long,  so 
soon  as  the  end  became  apparent,  he  took  leave  even  of  his 
Father,  to  avoid  excitements  and  intolerable  emotions  ;  and 
except  his  Brother  and  the  Maurices,  who  were  generally  about 
him  coming  and  going,  none  were  admitted.  This  latter  form 
of  life,  I  think,  continued  for  above  three  months.  Men  were 
still  working  about  his  grounds,  of  whom  he  took  some  charge ; 
needful  works,  great  and  small,  let  them  not  pause  on  account 
of  him.  He  still  rose  from  bed  ;  had  still  some  portion  of  his 
day  which  he  could  spend  in  his  Library.  Besides  business 
there,  he  read  a  good  deal, — earnest  books  ;  the  Bible,  most 
earnest  of  books,  his  chief  favourite.  He  still  even  wrote  a 
good  deal.  To  his  eldest  Boy,  now  Mr.  Newman's  ward,  who 
had  been  removed  to  the  Maurices'  since  the  beginning  of  this 
illness,  he  addressed,  every  day  or  two,  sometimes  daily,  for  eight 
or  nine  weeks,  a  Letter,  of  general  paternal  advice  and  exhor- 
tation ;  interspersing  sparingly,  now  and  then,  such  notices  of 
his  own  feelings  and  condition  as  could  be  addressed  to  a  boy. 
These  Letters  I  have  lately  read :  they  give,  beyond  any  he  has 
written,  a  noble  image  of  the  intrinsic  Sterling  ; — the  same  face 
we  had  long  known  ;  but  painted  now  as  on  the  azure  of  Eter- 
nity, serene,  victorious,  divinely  sad ;  the  dusts  and  extraneous 
disfigurements  imprinted  on  it  by  the  world,  now  washed  away. 
One  little  Excerpt,  not  the  best,  but  the  fittest  for  its  neigh- 
bourhood here,  will  be  welcome  to  the  reader  : 

'  To  Master  Edward  C.  Sterling,  London. 

'  Hillside,  Ventnor,  sgth  June  1844. 

'  MY  DEAR  BOY, — We  have  been  going  on  here  as  quietly 
'  as  possible,  with  no  event  that  I  know  of.  There  is  nothing 
'  except  books  to  occupy  me.  But  you  may  suppose  that  my 
'  thoughts  often  move  towards  you,  and  that  I  fancy  what  you 
'  may  be  doing  in  the  great  City, — the  greatest  on  the  Earth, 
'  — where  I  spent  so  many  years  of  my  life.  I  first  saw  Lon- 
'  don  when  I  was  between  eight  and  nine  years  old,  and  then 
'  lived  in  or  near  it  for  the  whole  of  the  next  ten,  and  more 
1  there  than  anywhere  else  for  seven  years  longer.  Since  then 


228  JOHN  STERLING. 

'  I  have  hardly  ever  been  a  year  without  seeing  the  place,  and 
'  have  often  lived  in  it  for  a  considerable  time.  There  I  grew 
'  from  childhood  to  be  a  man.  My  little  Brothers  and  Sisters, 
'  and  since,  my  Mother,  died  and  are  buried  there.  There  I 
'  first  saw  your  Mamma,  and  was  there  married.  It  seems  as 
'  if,  in  some  strange  way,  London  were  a  part  of  Me  or  I  of 
'  London.  I  think  of  it  often,  not  as  full  of  noise  and  dust  and 
'  confusion,  but  as  something  silent,  grand  and  everlasting. 

'  When  I  fancy  how  you  are  walking  in  the  same  streets, 
'  and  moving  along  the  same  river,  that  I  used  to  watch  so 
'  intently,  as  if  in  a  dream,  when  younger  than  you  are,  —  I 
'  could  gladly  burst  into  tears,  not  of  grief,  but  with  a  feeling 
'  that  there  is  no  name  for.  Everything  is  so  wonderful,  great 
'  and  holy,  so  sad  and  yet  not  bitter,  so  full  of  Death  and  so 
'  bordering  on  Heaven.  Can  you  understand  anything  of  this  ? 
'  If  you  can,  you  will  begin  to  know  what  a  serious  matter  our 
'  Life  is  ;  how  unworthy  and  stupid  it  is  to  trifle  it  away  with- 
'  out  heed  ;  what  a  wretched,  insignificant,  worthless  creature 
'  any  one  comes  to  be,  who  does  not  as  soon  as  possible  bend 
'  his  whole  strength,  as  in  stringing  a  stiff  bow,  to  doing  what- 
'  ever  task  lies  first  before  him.'  *  :'f  '•'•' 

'  We  have  a  mist  here  today  from  the  sea.  It  reminds  me 
'  of  that  which  I  used  to  see  from  my  house  in  St.  Vincent, 
'  rolling  over  the  great  volcano  and  the  mountains  round  it.  I 
'  used  to  look  at  it  from  our  windows  with  your  Mamma,  and 
'  you  a  little  baby  in  her  arms. 

'  This  Letter  is  not  so  well  written  as  I  could  wish,  but  I 
'  hope  you  will  be  able  to  read  it. — Your  affectionate  Papa, 

'  JOHN  STERLING.' 

These  Letters  go  from  June  gth  to  August  2d,  at  which 
latter  date  vacation-time  arrived,  and  the  Boy  returned  to  him. 
The  Letters  are  preserved  ;  and  surely  well  worth  preserving. 

In  this  manner  he  wore  the  slow  doomed  months  away. 
Day  after  day  his  little  period  of  Library  went  on  waning, 
shrinking  into  less  and  less  ;  but  I  think  it  never  altogether 
ended  till  the  general  end  came.  —  For  courage,  for  active 
audacity  we  had  all  known  Sterling ;  but  such  a  fund  of  mild 
stoicism,  of  devout  patience  and  heroic  composure,  we  did  not 
hitherto  know  in  him.  His  sufferings,  his  sorrows,  all  his  un- 


VENTNOR:  DEATH.  229 

utterabilitics  in  this  slow  agony,  he  held. right  manfully  down  ; 
marched  loyally,  as  at  the  bidding  of  the  Eternal,  into  the  dread 
Kingdoms,  and  no  voice  of  weakness  was  heard  from  him. 
Poor  noble  Sterling,  he  had  struggled  so  high  and  gained  so 
little  here  !  But  this  also  he  did  gain,  to  be  a  brave  man ;  and 
it  was  much. 

Summer  passed  into  Autumn :  Sterling's  earthly  businesses, 
to  the  last  detail  of  them,  were  now  all  as  good  as  done  ;  his 
strength  too  was  wearing  to  its  end,  his  daily  turn  in  the  Library 
shrunk  now  to  a  span.  He  had  to  hold  himself  as  if  in  readi- 
ness for  the  great  voyage  at  any  moment.  One  other  Letter  I 
must  give  ;  not  quite  the  last  message  I  had  from  Sterling,  but 
the  last  that  can  be  inserted  here  :  a  brief  Letter,  fit  to  be  for- 
ever memorable  to  the  receiver  of  it  : 

'  To  Thomas  Carlylc,  Esq.,  Chelsea,  London. 

1  Hillside,  Ventnor,  loth  August  1844. 

'  MY  DEAR  CARLYLE, — For  the  first  time  for  many  months 
'  it  seems  possible  to  send  you  a  few  words  ;  merely,  however, 
'  for  Remembrance  and  Farewell.  On  higher  matters  there 
'  is  nothing  to  say.  I  tread  the  common  road  into  the  great 
'  darkness,  without  any  thought  of  fear,  and  with  very  much  of 
'  hope.  Certainty  indeed  I  have  none.  With  regard  to  You 
'  and  Me  I  cannot  begin  to  write  ;  having  nothing  for  it  but  to 
'  keep  shut  the  lid  of  those  secrets  with  all  the  iron  weights 
'  that  are  in  my  power.  Towards  me  it  is  still  more  true  than 
'  towards  England  that  no  man  has  been  and  done  like  you. 
'  Heaven  bless  you  !  If  I  can  lend  a  hand  when  THERE,  that 
'  will  not  be  wanting.  It  is  all  very  strange,  but  not  one  hun- 
'  dredth  part  so  sad  as  it  seems  to  the  standers-by. 

'  Your  Wife  knows  my  mind  towards  her,  and  will  believe 
'  it  without  asseverations.- — -Yours  to  the  last, 

'  JOHN  STERLING.' 

It  was  a  bright  Sunday  morning  when  this  letter  came  to 
me  :  if  in  the  great  Cathedral  of  Immensity  I  did  no  worship 
that  day,  the  fault  surely  was  my  own.  Sterling  affectionately 
refused  to  see  me  ;  which  also  was  kind  and  wise.  And  four 
days  before  his  death,  there  are  some  stanzas  of  verse  for  me, 


23o  JOHN  STERLING. 

written  as  if  in  star-fire  and  immortal  tears  ;  which  are  among 
my  sacred  possessions,  to  be  kept  for  myself  alone. 

His  business  with  the  world  was  done  ;  the  one  business 
now  to  await  silently  what  may  lie  in  other  grander  worlds. 
"  God  is  great,"  he  was  wont  to  say  :  "  God  is  great."  The 
Maurices  were  now  constantly  near  him ;  Mrs.  Maurice  assidu- 
ously watching  over  him.  On  the  evening  of  Wednesday  the 
1 8th  of  September,  his  Brother,  as  he  did  every  two  or  three 
days,  came  down ;  found  him  in  the  old  temper,  weak  in  strength 
but  not  very  sensibly  weaker  ;  they  talked  calmly  together  for 
an  hour  ;  then  Anthony  left  his  bedside,  and  retired  for  the 
night,  not  expecting  any  change.  But  suddenly,  about  eleven 
o'clock,  there  came  a  summons  and  alarm  :  hurrying  to  his 
Brother's  room,  he  found  his  Brother  dying  ;  and  in  a  short 
while  more  the  faint  last  struggle  was  ended,  and  all  those 
struggles  and  strenuous  often -foiled  endeavours  of  eight-and- 
thirty  years  lay  hushed  in  death. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
CONCLUSION. 

STERLING  was  of  rather  slim  but  well-boned  wiry  figure, 
perhaps  an  inch  or  two  from  six  feet  in  height ;  of  blonde  com- 
plexion, without  colour,  yet  not  pale  or  sickly ;  dark-blonde  hair, 
copious  enough,  which  he  usually  wore  short.  The  general 
aspect  of  him  indicated  freedom,  perfect  spontaneity,  with  a 
certain  careless  natural  grace.  In  his  apparel,  you  could  notice, 
he  affected  dim  colours",  easy  shapes  ;  cleanly  always,  yet  even 
in  this  not  fastidious  or  conspicuous  :  he  sat  or  stood,  oftenest, 
in  loose  sloping  postures  ;  walked  with  long  strides,  body  care- 
lessly bent,  head  flung  eagerly  forward,  right  hand  perhaps 
grasping  a  cane,  and  rather  by  the  middle  to  swing  it,  than  by 
the  end  to  use  it  otherwise.  An  attitude  of  frank,  cheerful 
impetuosity,  of  hopeful  speed  and  alacrity  ;  which  indeed  his 
physiognomy,  on  all  sides  of  it,  offered  as  the  chief  expression. 
Alacrity,  velocity,  joyous  ardour,  dwelt  in  the  eyes  too,  which 
were  of  brownish  gray,  full  of  bright  kindly  life,  rapid  and  frank 
rather  than  deep  or  strong.  A  smile,  half  of  kindly  impatience, 
half  of  real  mirth,  often  sat  on  his  face.  The  head  was  long  ; 


CONCLUSION.  231 

high  over  the  vertex ;  in  the  brow,  of  fair  breadth,  but  not  high 
for  such  a  man. 

In  the  voice,  which  was  of  good  tenor  sort,  rapid  and  strik- 
ingly distinct,  powerful  too,  and  except  in  some  of  the  higher 
notes  harmonious,  there  was  a  clear- ringing  metallic  tone, — 
which  I  often  thought  was  wonderfully  physiognomic.  A  certain 
splendour,  beautiful,  but  not  the  deepest  or  the  softest,  which 
I  could  call  a  splendour  as  of  burnished  metal, — fiery  valour  of 
heart,  swift  decisive  insight  and  utterance,  then  a  turn  for  bril- 
liant elegance,  also  for  ostentation,  rashness,  £c.  &c., — in  short, 
a  flash  as  of  clear-glancing  sharp-cutting  steel,  lay  in  the  whole 
nature  of  the  man,  in  his  heart  and  in  his  intellect,  marking 
alike  the  excellence  and  the  limits  of  them  both.  His  laugh, 
which  on  light  occasions  was  ready  and  frequent,  had  in  it  no 
great  depth  of  gaiety,  or  sense  for  the  ludicrous  in  men  or  things ; 
you  might  call  it  rather  a  good  smile  become  vocal  than  a  deep 
real  laugh  :  with  his  whole  man  I  never  saw  him  laugh.  A 
clear  sense  of  the  humorous  he  had,  as  of  most  other  things  ; 
but  in  himself  little  or  no  true  humour; — nor  did  he  attempt  that 
side  of  things.  To  call  him  deficient  in  sympathy  would  seem 
strange,  him  whose  radiances  and  resonances  went  thrilling  over 
all  the  world,  and  kept  him  in  brotherly  contact  with  all :  but 
I  may  say  his  sympathies  dwelt  rather  with  the  high  and  sub- 
lime than  with  the  low  or  ludicrous  ;  and  were,  in  any  field, 
rather  light,  wide  and  lively,  than  deep,  abiding  or  great. 

There  is  no  Portrait  of  him  which  tolerably  resembles.  The 
miniature  Medallion,  of  which  Mr.  Hare  has  given  an  Engrav- 
ing, offers  us,  with  no  great  truth  in  physical  details,  one,  and 
not  the  best,  superficial  expression  of  his  face,  as  if  that  with 
vacuity  had  been  what  the  face  contained  ;  and  even  that  Mr. 
Hare's  engraver  has  disfigured  into  the  nearly  or  the  utterly 
irrecognisable.  Two  Pencil-sketches,  which  no  artist  could  ap- 
prove of,  hasty  sketches  done  in  some  social  hour,  one  by  his 
friend  Spedding,  one  by  Baynim  the  Novelist,  whom  he  slightly 
knew  and  had  been  kind  to,  tell  a  much  truer  story  so  far  as 
they  go  :  of  these  his  Brother  has  engravings  ;  but  these  also 
I  must  suppress  as  inadequate  for  strangers. 

Nor  in  the  way  of  Spiritual  Portraiture  does  there,  after  so 
much  writing  and  excerpting,  anything  of  importance  remain 


232  JOHN  STERLING. 

for  me  to  say.  John  Sterling  and  his  Life  in  this  world  were — 
such  as  has  been  already  said.  In  purity  of  character,  in  the 
so-called  moralities,  in  all  manner  of  proprieties  of  conduct,  so 
as  tea-tables  and  other  human  tribunals  rule  them,  he  might  be 
defined  as  perfect,  according  to  the  world's  pattern  :  in  these 
outward  tangible  respects  the  world's  criticism  of  him  must  have 
been  praise  and  that  only.  An  honourable  man,  and  good 
citizen ;  discharging,  with  unblamable  correctness,  all  functions 
and  duties  laid  on  him  by  the  customs  (mores)  of  the  society  he 
lived  in, — with  correctness  and  something  more.  In  all  these 
particulars,  a  man  perfectly  moral,  or  of  approved  virtue  accord- 
ing to  the  rules. 

Nay  in  the  far  more  essential  tacit  virtues,  which  are  not 
marked  on  stone  tables,  or  so  apt  to  be  insisted  on  by  human 
creatures  over  tea  or  elsewhere, — in  clear  and  perfect  fidelity  to 
Truth  wherever  found,  in  childlike  and  soldierlike,  pious  and 
valiant  loyalty  to  the  Highest,  and  what  of  good  and  evil  that 
might  send  him, — he  excelled  among  good  men.  The  joys  and 
the  sorrows  of  his  lot  he  took  with  true  simplicity  and  acquies- 
cence. Like  a  true  son,  not  like  a  miserable  mutinous  rebel, 
he  comported  himself  in  this  Universe.  Extremity  of  distress, 
— and  surely  his  fervid  temper  had  enough  of  contradiction  in 
this  world,— could  not  tempt  him  into  impatience  at  any  time. 
By  no  chance  did  you  ever  hear  from  him  a  whisper  of  those 
mean  repinings,  miserable  arraignings  and  questionings  of  the 
Eternal  Power,  such  as  weak  souls  even  well  disposed  will  some- 
times give  way  to  in  the  pressure  of  their  despair ;  to  the  like  of 
this  he  never  yielded,  or  showed  the  least  tendency  to  yield  ;— 
which  surely  was  well  on  his  part.  For  the  Eternal  Power,  I 
still  remark,  will  not  answer  the  like  of  this,  but  silently  and 
terribly  accounts  it  impious,  blasphemous  and  damnable,  and 
now  as  heretofore  will  visit  it  as  such.  Not  a  rebel  but  a  son, 
I  said  ;  willing  to  suffer  when  Heaven  said,  Thou  shall ; — and 
withal,  what  is  perhaps  rarer  in  such  a  combination,  willing  to 
rejoice  also,  and  right  cheerily  taking  the  good  that  was  sent, 
whensoever  or  in  whatever  form  it  came. 

A  pious  soul  we  may  justly  call  him  ;  devoutly  submissive 
to  the  will  of  the  Supreme  in  all  things  :  the  highest  and  sole 
essential  form  which  Religion  can  assume  in  man,  and  without 
which  all  forms  of  religion  are  a  mockery  and  a  delusion  in  man. 


CONCLUSION.  233 

Doubtless,  in  so  clear  and  filial  a  heart  there  must  have  dwelt 
the  perennial  feeling  of  silent  worship  ;  which  silent  feeling,  as 
we  have  seen,  he  was  eager  enough  to  express  by  all  good  ways 
of  utterance ;  zealously  adopting  such  appointed  forms  and  creeds 
as  the  Dignitaries  of  the  World  had  fixed  upon  and  solemnly 
named  recommendable  ;  prostrating  his  heart  in  such  Church, 
by  such  accredited  rituals  and  seemingly  fit  or  half-fit  methods, 
as  his  poor  time  and  country  had  to  offer  him,- — -not  rejecting 
the  said  methods  till  they  stood  convicted  of  palpable  ////fitness, 
and  then  doing  it  right  gently  withal,  rather  letting  them  drop 
as  pitiably  dead  for  him,  than  angrily  hurling  them  out  of  doors 
as  needing  to  be  killed.  By  few  Englishmen  of  his  epoch  had 
the  thing  called  Church  of  England  been  more  loyally  appealed 
to  as  a  spiritual  mother. 

And  yet,  as  I  said  before,  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
piety,  what  we  call  devotion  or  worship,  was  the  principle 
deepest  in  him.  In  spite  of  his  Coleridge  discipleship,  and  his 
once  headlong  operations  following  thereon,  I  used  to  judge  that 
his  piety  was  prompt  and  pure  rather  than  great  or  intense  ; 
that,  on  the  whole,  religious  devotion  was  not  the  deepest  cle- 
ment of  him.  His  reverence  was  ardent  and  just,  ever  ready 
for  the  thing  or  man  that  deserved  revering,  or  seemed  to  de- 
serve it :  but  he  was  of  too  joyful,  light  and  hoping  a  nature  to 
go  to  the  depths  of  that  feeling,  much  more  to  dwell  perennially 
in  it.  He  had  no  fear  in  his  composition  ;  terror  and  awe  did 
not  blend  with  his  respect  of  anything.  In  no  scene  or  epoch 
could  he  have  been  a  Church  Saint,  a  fanatic  enthusiast,  or 
have  worn-out  his  life  in  passive  martyrdom,  sitting  patient  in 
his  grim  coal-mine,  looking  at  the  '  three  ells'  of  Heaven  high 
overhead  there.  In  sorrow  he  would  not  dwell  ;  all  sorrow  he 
swiftly  subdued,  and  shook  away  from  him.  How  could  you 
have  made  an  Indian  Fakeer  of  the  Greek  Apollo,  '  whose 
bright  eye  lends  brightness,  and  never  yet  saw  a  shadow'  ? — I 
should  say,  not  religious  reverence,  rather  artistic  admiration 
was  the  essential  character  of  him  :  a  fact  connected  with  all 
other  facts  in  the  physiognomy  of  his  life  and  self,  and  giving 
a  tragic  enough  character  to  much  of  the  history  he  had 
among  us. 

Poor  Sterling,  he  was  by  nature  appointed  for  a  Poet,  then, 
— a  Poet  after  his  sort,  or  recogniser  and  delineator  of  the  Beau- 


234  JOHN  STERLING. 

tiful  ;  and  not  for  a  Priest  at  all  ?  Striving  towards  the  sunny 
heights,  out  of  such  a  level  and  through  such  an  element  as  ours 
in  these  days  is,  he  had  strange  aberrations  appointed  him, 
and  painful  wanderings  amid  the  miserable  gas-lights,  bog-fires, 
dancing  meteors  and  putrid  phosphorescences  which  form  the 
guidance  of  a  young  human  soul  at  present !  Not  till  after  trying 
all  manner  of  sublimely  illuminated  places,  and  finding  that  the 
basis  of  them  was  putridity,  artificial  gas  and  quaking  bog,  did 
he,  when  his  strength  was  all  done,  discover  his  true  sacred  hill, 
and  passionately  climb  thither  while  life  was  fast  ebbing  ! — A 
tragic  history,  as  all  histories  are  ;  yet  a  gallant,  brave  and 
noble  one,  as  not  many  are.  It  is  what,  to  a  radiant  son  of  the 
Muses,  and  bright  messenger  of  the  harmonious  Wisdoms,  this 
poor  world,  —  if  he  himself  have  not  strength  enough,  and 
inertia  enough,  and  amid  his  harmonious  eloquences  silence 
enough, — has  provided  at  present.  Many  a  high-striving,  too- 
hasty  soul,  seeking  guidance  towards  eternal  excellence  from 
the  official  Black-artists,  and  successful  Professors  of  political, 
ecclesiastical,  philosophical,  commercial,  general  and  particular 
Legerdemain,  will  recognise  his  own  history  in  this  image  of 
a  fellow-pilgrim's. 

Over-haste  was  Sterling's  continual  fault ;  over-haste,  and 
want  of  the  due  strength, — alas,  mere  want  of  the  due  inertia 
chiefly;  which  is  so  common  a  gift  for  most  part  ;  and  proves 
so  inexorably  needful  withal !  But  he  was  good  and  generous 
and  true  ;  joyful  where  there  was  joy,  patient  and  silent  where 
endurance  was  required  of  him ;  shook  innumerable  sorrows, 
and  thick-crowding  forms  of  pain,  gallantly  away  from  him  ; 
fared  frankly  forward,  and  with  scrupulous  care  to  tread  on  no 
one's  toes.  True,  above  all,  one  may  call  him  ;  a  man  of  perfect 
veracity  in  thought,  word  and  deed.  Integrity  towards  all  men, 
— nay  integrity  had  ripened  with  him  into  chivalrous  generosity  ; 
there  was  no  guile  or  baseness  anywhere  found  in  him.  Trans- 
parent as  crystal ;  he  could  not  hide  anything  sinister,  if  such 
there  had  been  to  hide.  A  more  perfectly  transparent  soul  I 
have  never  known.  It  was  beautiful,  to  read  all  those  interior 
movements  ;  the  little  shades  of  affectations,  ostentations  ;  tran- 
sient spurts  of  anger,  which  never  grew  to  the  length  of  settled 
spleen  :  all  so  naive,  so  childlike,  the  very  faults  grew  beautiful 
to  you. 


CONCLUSION.  235 

And  so  he  played  his  part  among  us,  and  has  now  ended  it : 
in  this  first  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  such  was  the  shape 
of  human  destinies  the  world  and  he  made  out  between  them. 
He  sleeps  now,  in  the  little  burying  -  ground  of  Bonchurch  ; 
bright,  ever-young  in  the  memory  of  others  that  must  grow  old; 
and  was  honourably  released  from  his  toils  before  the  hottest  of 
the  day. 

All  that  remains,  in  palpable  shape,  of  John  Sterling's  acti- 
vities in  this  world  are  those  Two  poor  Volumes  ;  scattered 
fragments  gathered  from  the  general  waste  of  forgotten  ephemera 
by  the  piety  of  a  friend  :  an  inconsiderable  memorial ;  not  pre- 
tending to  have  achieved  greatness  ;  only  disclosing,  mournfully, 
to  the  more  observant,  that  a  promise  of  greatness  was  there. 
Like  other  such  lives,  like  all  lives,  this  is  a  tragedy  ;  high  hopes, 
noble  efforts  ;  under  thickening  difficulties  and  impediments, 
ever-new  nobleness  of  valiant  effort ; — and  the  result  death,  with 
conquests  by  no  means  corresponding.  A  life  which  cannot 
challenge  the  world's  attention  ;  yet  which  does  modestly  solicit 
it,  and  perhaps  on  clear  study  will  be  found  to  reward  it. 

On  good  evidence  let  the  world  understand  that  here  was  a 
remarkable  soul  born  into  it ;  who,  more  than  others,  sensible 
to  it£  influences,  took  intensely  into  him  such  tint  and  shape  of 
feature  as  the  world  had  to  offer  there  and  then  ;  fashioning 
himself  eagerly  by  whatsoever  of  noble  presented  itself;  partici- 
pating ardently  in  the  world's  battle,  and  suffering  deeply  in  its 
bewilderments  ; — whose  Life-pilgrimage  accordingly  is  an  em- 
blem, unusually  significant,  of  the  world's  own  during  those 
years  of  his.  A  man  of  infinite  susceptivity  ;  who  caught  every- 
where, more  than  others,  the  colour  of  the  element  he  lived  in, 
the  infection  of  all  that  was  or  appeared  honourable,  beautiful 
and  manful  in  the  tendencies  of  his  Time  ; — whose  history  there- 
fore is,  beyond  others,  emblematic  of  that  of  his  Time. 

In  Sterling's  Writings  and  Actions,  were  they  capable  of 
being  well  read,  we  consider  that  there  is  for  all  true  hearts,  and 
especially  for  young  noble  seekers,  and  strivers  towards  what  is 
highest,  a  mirror  in  which  some  shadow  of  themselves  and  of 
their  immeasurably  complex  arena  will  profitably  present  itself. 
Here  also  is  one  encompassed  and  struggling  even  as  they  now 
are.  This  man  also  had  said  to  himself,  not  in  mere  Catechism- 


236  JOHN  STERLING. 

words,  but  with  all  his  instincts,  and  the  question  thrilled  in 
every  nerve  of  him,  and  pulsed  in  every  drop  of  his  blood  : 
"  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  Behold,  I  too  would  live  and 
"  work  as  beseems  a  denizen  of  this  Universe,  a  child  of  the 
"  Highest  God.  By  what  means  is  a  noble  life  still  possible  for 
"  me  here?  Ye  Heavens  and  thou  Earth,  oh,  how?"  —  The 
history  of  this  long-continued  prayer  and  endeavour,  lasting  in 
various  figures  for  near  forty  years,  may  now  and  for  some  time 
coming  have  something  to  say  to  men  ! 

Nay,  what  of  men  or  of  the  world?  Here,  visible  to  myself, 
for  some  while,  was  a  brilliant  human  presence,  distinguishable, 
honourable  and  lovable  amid  the  dim  common  populations  ; 
among  the  million  little  beautiful,  once  more  a  beautiful  human 
soul :  whom  I,  among  others,  recognised  and  lovingly  walked 
with,  while  the  years  and  the  hours  were.  Sitting  now  by  his 
tomb  in  thoughtful  mood,  the  new  times  bring  a  new  duty  for 
me.  'Why  write  the  Life  of  Sterling?'  I  imagine  I  had  a  com- 
mission higher  than  the  world's,  the  dictate  of  Nature  herself, 
to  do  what  is  now  done.  Sic  prosit. 


SUMMARY. 


PART   I. 

CHAP.  I.   Introduction. 

STERLING'S  character  and  writings,  how  bequeathed.  Mr.  Hare's  estim- 
able but  insufficient  Biography.  How  happy  to  be  unknown,  rather  than 
misknown  :  This  no  longer  possible  for  Sterling,  (p.  i.)  —  His  beautiful 
manly  character  :  No  sceptic,  always  believing,  prompt  and  clear.  In  his 
religious  struggles  an  emblem  of  his  time,  and  herald  of  victory  to  all  good 
men.  A  true  portrait  of  the  least  man  unspeakably  instructive  even  to  the 
greatest.  (5.) 

CHAP.  II.  Birth  and  Parentage. 

Born  in  the  Isle  of  Bute.  A  grave  question.  Early  environment.  Ster- 
ling's Father.  A  bit  of  genealogy,  (p.  7.) — His  Grandfather.  His  Father's 
Irish  form  of  character  :  Trained  for  the  Bar :  Enters  the  Army.  Marriage. 
Sterling's  Mother:  Her  delicate  beautiful  nature.  (9.) — Their  money-pro- 
spects. Birth  of  first  son.  Gentleman  farmer.  Birth  of  John  Sterling,  (n.) 

CHAP.  III.   Schools:  Llanblethian ;  Paris;  London. 

His  Father's  restless  striving.  Removes  to  Wales.  Scenic  influences. 
Vale  of  Glamorgan.  Welsh  villages.  Llanblethian.  (p.  12.) —  Sterling's 
home  and  boyhood.  His  Father's  Promethean  struggles.  Letters  of  I 'ctiis : 
Connexion  with  the  Times.  (15.)  —  Peace  of  1814:  Removes  to  Paris. 
Change  of  scene  for  young  Sterling:  Appointed  and  unappointed  school- 
ings. Napoleon  from  Elba  :  The  Sterling  household  drifted  home  again. 
Finally  settles  in  London.  Domestic  tragedies.  (21.) — Sterling  a  headlong 
boy  of  twelve  :  Runs  away  :  Letter  to  his  Mother.  His  Mother's  household 
sorrows.  (25.) 


238  SUMMARY. 


CHAP.  IV.  Universities :  Glasgow ;  Cambridge. 

Sterling's  school  and  other  acquirements.  One  year  at  Glasgow.  His 
brother  Anthony.  His  Father's  improving  position,  (p.  26.) — Cambridge  : 
Mr.  Hare's  friendly  eulogium.  Quenching  a  fire.  Not  an  exact  scholar. 
Practical  but  impetuous  turn  of  mind.  A  deeper  than  scholastic  discipline. 
(28.) — University  life  and  companionship.  Black  dragoons  :  Spiritual  Radi- 
calism. (31.) 

CHAP.  V.   A  Profession. 

What  will  he  do  ?  A  mad  world.  What  noble  life  possible  ?  (p.  33.) — 
Speciosity  instead  of  performance.  Sterling's  own  shortcomings  :  Brilliant 
nomadic  ways:  No  wise  discipline  for  him.  A  better  time.  (35.)  —  His 
ready  utterance,  and  quick  clear  logic.  Secretaryship.  A  parliamentary 
career  negatived.  Pulmonary  and  other  symptoms.  No  man  can  reach  his 
ideal  life.  (36.) 

CHAP.  VI.  Literature :  The  Athenceum. 

Sterling's  equipment.  Literature  too  often  a  consuming  fire.  The 
Athenaeum  :  Frederick  Maurice  and  he:  A  literary  voyage,  (p.  38.)  — 
High  aim  and  promise  of  Sterling's  imperfect  efforts.  His  '  period  of  dark- 
ness.' (39.) 

CHAP.  VII.  Regent  Street. 

The  Athenaeum  not  successful.  Sterling's  literary  life.  His  Father's 
house.  The  Saint-Simonian  Portent.  He  visits  Coleridge,  (p.  40.) — Mrs. 
Buller's  death.  Letter  to  his  Brother:  Fanny  Kemble.  (42.) — Toryism: 
Radical  Reform.  Down  with  Imposture.  The  Church  without  relation  to 
him  :  Doom  inevitable.  A  hundred  Knights  against  all  comers.  Message 
of  Heaven.  (44). 

CHAP.  VIII.   Coleridge. 

Coleridge's  Magus-prophet  character.  A  last  hope  for  a  dead  Church. 
Mr.  Oilman's  house  at  Highgate  :  A  charming  outlook,  (p.  46.)  —  Cole- 
ridge, a  heavy-laden,  high-aspiring,  much-suffering  man.  Sterling  assidu- 
ously attended  him  :  Their  first  colloquy.  Coleridge's  Talk  :  Wide-spread 
irresolution,  subtle  insight,  pious  aimlessness  :  A  very  dreary  feeling.  Sim- 
plicity and  pious  truth.  (47.) — Dead  Churches  :  A  dead,  sunken  World  : 
Astral  Spirit,  done  by  Alchemy.  Ingenuous  young  minds.  (51.) — Truth 
and  fatal  untruth.  Infidelity  unconquered.  The  higher  the  man,  the 
harder  and  heavier  his  tasks.  To  steal  into  Heaven,  by  whatever  method, 
is  forever  forbidden  :  To  all  Heaven-scaling  Ixions  the  just  gods  are  very 
stern.  (52.) 


SUMMARY. 


CHAP.  IX.   Spanish  Exiles. 

Sterling's  Coleridgean  fermentations.  Novel  of  Arthur  Coningsby. 
The  Barton  family  :  Susannah  Barton  :  Sterling's  interest  in  them  and 
her.  Democratic  Radicalism  not  given  up  yet.  (p.  54.)— Spanish  Political 
Refugees  :  The  one  safe  coast  :  The  Revolutionary  Horologe.  General 
Torrijos.  (56.) 

CHAP.  X.    Torrijos. 

Reception  in  England.  Madam  Torrijos  and  Mrs.  Sterling.  Romantic 
Spain.  Torrijos  and  his  fellow  Refugees  :  Sterling's  zealous  assistance  : 
That  of  the  Bartons  and  other  friends,  (p.  57. ) — Mouldering  into  nothing- 
ness :  Death  in  battle  better.  A  terrible  chance  worth  trying.  Robert 
Boycl  and  General  Torrijos.  A  ship  manned  :  Sterling  and  others  volun- 
teer:  Letter  to  Charles  Barton:  Busy  weeks.  Doubts.  (59.) — All  is  ready. 
Tender  farewell  becomes  unexpected  greeting :  Sterling  and  Miss  Barton  : 
An  offer  accepted.  Sterling  to  remain  in  England.  Down  to  Deal :  Thames 
Police  :  The  plot  discovered.  Sterling's  presence  of  mind.  (63.) 


CHAP.  XI.  Marriage:  Ill-health;  West-Indies. 

Sterling's  dubious  outlooks  :  Not  despondent.  Torrijos  and  his  fellow- 
adventurers.  Sterling's  Marriage  :  His  kindly  true-hearted  Wife.  A  dan- 
gerous illness,  (p.  64.) — West-Indian  estate  bequeathed:  A  visit  may  im- 
prove the  property,  and  his  own  health.  New  hopes  and  impetuosities. 
Sets  sail  for  St.  Vincent.  (66.) 


CHAP.  XII.   Island  of  St.  Vincent. 

An  interesting  Isle.  Sterling's  new  manner  of  life.  Slaves  unfit  for 
freedom.  Letter  to  his  Mother:  A  West-Indian  tornado:  House  half  blown 
down :  His  own  and  Wife's  perilous  position  :  Courageous  devotion  of  his 
Negroes  :  Ruin  in  Barbadoes.  (p.  67.)  —  Goethe's  last  birthday.  Their  first 
child.  Reminiscences.  (74.) 


CHAP.  XIII.  A  Catastrophe. 

A  more  fatal  hurricane  for  poor  Sterling.  News  of  Torrijos  and  cousin 
Boyd  :  Total  failure  of  their  Spanish  adventure.  Surrender  at  discretion, 
and  Military  execution.  Poor  Boyd.  Madam  Torrijos  a  widow,  (p.  75.) 
—  Sterling's  passionate  remorse.  (78.) 


240  SUMMARY. 


CHAP.  XIV.   Pause. 

Lifelong  sorrow  and  repentance.  Higher  wants  and  nobler  insights  : 
Coleridge's  prophetic  moonshine,  (p. 78.)— Old  Radicalism  and  new  mis- 
taken Piety.  Struggles  of  poor  Sterling.  Refuge  of  Phitnnthropism.  Con- 
scious and  unconscious  realities.  (80.) 


CHAP.  XV.  Bonn  j  Hcrstmonccnx. 

Sterling  returns  to  England.  Crosses  to  Germany.  Arthur  Coningsbv 
published  :  Better  things  to  be  looked  for.  A  gleam  of  sunshine  in  a  heathy 
wilderness.  The  Rev.  Julius  Hare  :  Sterling  looks  wistfully  to  the  Church  : 
Takes  the  veil.  (p.  81.) — His  life  a  fermenting  chaos  :  No  fixed  highway  to 
the  Eternal :  A  tragic  pilgrimage.  Sterling's  most  rash  and  unpermitted 
step :  God's  truth  shall  not  be  wedded  with  impunity  to  the  Devil's  untruth. 
The  delirious  Time  has  done  its  worst :  Speedy  misgivings,  and  lifelong 
struggle  to  be  free  of  it.  (84.) 


PART  II. 
CHAP.  I.  Curate. 

Fervent  priestly  activities  while  they  could  last  :  Christian  Paul  and 
Christian  Sterling.  Mr.  Hare's  testimony  to  his  eaniest  sincerity  and  affec- 
tionate worth.  Gratefully  remembered  by  the  poor.  (p.  87.) — Carlyle's  first 
interview  with  Sterling's  Father.  A  Times  writer.  Contrasts  and  family 
likenesses.  (89.) 

CHAP.  II.  Not  Curate. 

Gathering  clouds.  His  goal  not  there.  Conscious  and  unconscious 
causes  :  Childlike  self-deception  :  Pulmonary  ailments.  In  the  Church 
eight  months  in  all.  To  follow  illusions  till  they  burst.  The  history  of 
Sterling  a  symbol  of  his  time.  What  is  incredible  to  the  soul  can  be  before 
God  but  a  lie  in  the  mouth,  (p.  90.)— Carlyle  first  sees  Sterling:  His  per- 
sonal aspect.  Slavery  Question.  Sterling's  clashing  guileless  address.  A 
walk  westward  together.  Precious  possessions  of  life.  A  party  at  his 
Father's:  Church -of -England  indifferency  :  A  good  investment.  (92.)  — 
Letter  to  Carlyle :  Sterling's  adventurous  hunter  spirit  :  Sartor  Resartus. 
Unusual  likeness  between  his  Speech  and  Letters.  A  true  man.  (95.) 


SUMMARY.  241 

CHAP.  III.  Bayswatcr. 

Frequent  brief  visits  to  London.  Swift  certainties  amid  wide  uncertain- 
ties. Innocent  friendly  admonitions  :  Efforts  to  improve  a  friend's  style, 
&c.,  and  signal  failure.  Sterling's  preaching:  Brick-and-Mortar  Apostle- 
ship.  Removes  permanently  to  London.  His  income  sure  to  him.  Resi- 
dence at  Bayswater.  How  unfold  one's  little  bit  of  talent?  A  small  Aga- 
memnon, could  he  but  find  his  Kingdom.  Literature  the  one  hope  left, 
(p.  104  )  -Ecclesiastical  wrappages.  Restless  play  of  being.  Consummate 
dexterity  in  debate  :  Flat  Pantheism  :  His  admirable  temper.  No  deep 
belief.  (107.) — Theological  metaphysics:  His  misconception,  and  final 
loyal  recognition  of  Goethe.  A  beautiful  childlike  soul.  Measured  his  man 
loss  by  reputation  than  by  what  he  had  to  show  for  himself.  Frederick 
Maurice:  Their  kindly  friendship.  The  good  and  Rev.  Mr.  Dunn.  Silent 
and  rapid  modifications,  (no.) 

CHAP.  IV.    To  Bordeaux-. 

Frank  Edgeworth.  Shadow-fighting.  Education  and  the  Clergy.  Hy- 
pocrisy the  one  bad  and  fearful  thing,  (p.  114.)  — A  rainy  walk  :  Another 
dangerous  illness.  Here  is  not  thy  rest.  Removes  with  his  Family  to  Bor- 
deaux. Five  health-journeys.  (116.)  —  Letter  to  Carlyle  :  Montaigne's 
House  :  Caves  of  St.  Emilion  :  Goethe.  The  war  of  rubrics  left  in  the  far 
distance.  Spiritual  return  to  the  open  air.  Scenes  of  his  early  boyhood. 
Letter  to  his  Mother.  (119.) 

CHAP.  V.    To  Madeira. 

Leaves  Bordeaux.  A  little  cottage  on  Blackhcath  :  Sterling's  delicate 
and  loving  sympathy:  The  burden  of  Life  :  Darkness.  Literary  occupa- 
tions :  Imperfections  of  his  poems.  Sterling's  pulpit  style  of  reading, 
(p.  126.) — To  Madeira  for  the  winter  :  A  sad  adieu.  Improved  health  : 
Beautiful  scenery  :  Cheerful  busy  clays.  Letter  to  Carlyle  :  High  admira- 
tion for  Goethe,  and  real  sorrow  he  was  not  somebody  else  :  A  pleasant 
refuge:  Mrs.  Carlyle.  Letter  to  Charles  Barton :  Description  of  the  Island. 
(128.) — Professor  Wilson's  generous  encouragement.  The  Onyx  Ring.  A 
pleasant  circle  :  Dr.  Calvert.  (134.) 

CHAP.  VI.   Literature  :   The  Sterling  Club. 

Free-choice  and  necessity  :  A  life  too  vehement  for  the  bodily  strength. 
An  improvise?  genius.  Sterling's  worth  as  a  writer  :  A  real  seer-glance  into 
the  world  of  our  day.  Difference  in  material,  (p.  136.) — Nomadic  vicissi- 
tudes. Illusive  hopes.  Conscious  how  much  he  needed  patience  :  His 
manful  faith.  Literature.  The  Sterling  Club.  To  Rome  for  the  winter  : 
A  farewell  walk.  (138.) 

R 


242  SUMMARY. 

CHAP.  VII.  Italy. 

Through  Belgium  and  Switzerland  to  Rome.  Letters  to  his  Mother  : 
Passage  over  the  Alps  :  Italy.  Valley  of  the  Arno  :  Pescia  :  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer  and  Arabian  Nights  condensed  into  one  :  Pisa.  English  poli- 
tics, (p.  141.)— Rome  and  the  Papacy:  Guildhall  finery:  A  dash  of  Southern 
enjoyment  in  the  condition  of  the  meanest :  Idleness.  (148.)  —  Letter  to  his 
eldest  Boy :  Sterling's  great  excellence  in  such  Letters.  (151.) — Art  :  A 
windy  gospel.  Tragic  playactorism  under  God's  earnest  sky  :  An  eye  for 
facts  :  Duty  of  abhorrence.  The  Carnival,  His  companions  in  Italy.  His 
Wife's  illness  :  Hurries  home.  (153.) 


PART  III. 
CHAP.  I.    Clifton. 

Sterling's  improved  health.  Spreads  his  tent-habitation  :  Beautiful  and 
pathetic.  Friends  old  and  new  :  Francis  Newman.  No  hope  of  perman- 
ency. Education  Question.  Letter  to  Carlyle  :  Easier  to  write  to,  than 
about  :  Review  of  Teufelsdrockh :  Strauss  :  Mrs.  Strachey :  Little  Charlotte 
and  her  Doll.  (p.  161.) — Sterling  often  in  London  :  Friendly  colloquies 
amid  the  chaotic  roar  of  things  :  A  day's  riding :  At  once  a  child  and  a 
gifted  man.  A  way  to  kindle  enthusiasm.  Article  on  Carlyle :  First  gene- 
rous human  recognition.  Sterling's  stiff  gainsayings  :  The  silent  hours  : 
Loyalty  to  truth.  Letter  to  his  Father  :  Ten  thousand  follies  no  equivalent 
for  one  wisdom.  (167.) — A  parting  of  the  ways,  Poetry  or  Prose?  By  his 
thought,  not  by  his  mode  of  delivering  it,  must  a  man  live  or  die.  Better 
make  History  than  try  to  sing  about  it.  Sterling's  uncertainties  :  Illness  :  A 
Volume  of  Poems.  (171.) 

CHAP.  II.    Two  Winters. 

On  his  way  to  Madeira  :  Stays  at  Falmouth.  Resources  and  climate. 
An  interesting  Quaker  family  :  Companions,  (p.  174.) — Returns  to  Clifton  : 
Vague  hopes  :  No  man  knows  another's  burden.  Letter  to  his  Father :  A 
fall.  Poetry:  The  Election:  Tragedy  of  Sir  afford :  Stubborn  realism. 
(177.)— Torquay.  The  loss  of  friends.  Clifton  again.  Penzance.  Fal- 
mouth friends  :  Mrs.  Sterling.  (180.) 

CHAP.  III.  Falmouth:  Poems. 

Falmouth  :  Its  frank  interesting  population.  Sterling's  deepest  wish,  to 
be  equal  to  his  work.  His  Books.  His  high  notions  of  Tragedy.  A 


SUMMARY.  243 

Lecture.  The  Foxes.  Letter  to  his  Father  :  Historical  painting  :  A  Poly- 
technic Meeting,  (p.  183.)  —  Cornish  heroism  and  Methodist  faith  :  The 
Misses  Fox.  The  Election,  a  Poem  :  Mixture  of  mockery  and  earnestness  : 
Portrait  of  Mogg  :  A  pretty  picture.  Sterling's  brave  straggle.  Poor  Cal- 
vert's  death.  (189.) — Starting  a  Periodical :  No  fighting  regiment  possible. 
The  solitary  battle.  Adieu,  O  Church  ;  in  God's  name,  adieu  !  Books  and 
Writers.  The  great  World-Horologe.  (195.) 

CHAP.  IV.  Naples:  Poems. 

A  wish  to  see  Naples.  Letter  to  Charles  Barton  :  Invitation  to  join  him. 
Letter  to  his  Mother  :  Malta.  At  Naples.  Letter  to  Carlyle  :  The  Protes- 
tant Burial-ground  :  Neapolitans  :  Pompeii,  (p.  197.) — A  French  moral 
epidemic.  Improved  health.  Lockhart:  John  Mill's  work  on  Logic.  A 
new  Poem,  Ca.ur-de-Lion :  Strafford  not  yet  published.  A  Christmas  Tree. 
Moffat's  Missionary  Labours  in  South  Africa.  (203.) 

CHAP.  V.  Disaster  on  Disaster. 

His  Father's  household  an  ever-open  port  of  refuge.  His  Father  a  pro- 
sperous, loosely-joyous,  victorious  man.  Sudden  changes  of  opinion  and 
policy,  with  intrinsic  consistency  of  aim.  The  Times  Newspaper  his  express 
emblem.  An  improvising  faculty  without  parallel.  Note  of  thanks  from 
Sir  Robert  Peel :  Reply.  Hero-worship  for  Peel  and  Wellington.  O'Connell 
on  the  wings  of  blarney,  (p.  206.) — So  rolled  the  fruitful  days.  Sterling's 
happy  relations  with  his  Father.  Encounters  a  dangerous  accident :  His 
Mother  too  seized  by  a  painful  and  fatal  disease.  Hastens  to  London.  Im- 
pending tragedy.  Returns  to  his  Wife,  now  near  her  confinement.  (212.) — 
Two  gentle  Letters  to  his  dying  Mother  :  Beauty  and  Eternity  of  Life.  His 
tender  solicitude  for  his  true-hearted  Wife.  In  two  hours  both  Mother  and 
Wife  are  suddenly  snatched  from  him.  Very  solitary  amid  the  tumult  of 
fallen  and  falling  things.  (214.) 

CHAP.  VI.    Ventnor:  Death. 

Sterling  calls  his  Children  round  him :  A  Mother  as  well  as  Father  to 
them  :  God  will  care  for  all.  Removes  to  Ventnor,  and  once  more  resumes 
his  work.  The  Poem  of  Ca-ur-de-Lion.  An  honourable  capacity  to  stand 
single  against  the  world,  (p.  218.) — -Visits  London.  His  Father's  closing 
days.  One  of  the  saddest  of  dinners :  The  time  for  sport  is  past.  A  last 
interview.  Ventnor  again  :  Mrs.  Maurice,  his  Wife's  Sister :  His  broken 
life  lies  heavy  on  him.  He  works  steadily  at  his  task.  Letter  to  Carlyle  : 
Flashes  of  sad  wild  gaiety  :  His  new,  changed  life.  (221.) — His  last  illness  : 
Perfect  courage  :  His  affairs  he  settled  to  the  last  item.  The  Bible,  most 


244  SUMMARY. 

earnest  of  books.  Letter  to  his  eldest  Boy  :  Serene,  victorious,  divinely  sad. 
He  had  struggled  so  high,  and  gained  so  little  here.  Letter  to  Carlyle  :  Not 
by  knowledge,  but  by  faith  in  God.  Sacred  possessions.  Sterling's  calm 
last  hours  :  The  faint  last  struggle  ended.  (225. ) 


CHAP.  VII.   Conclusion. 

Sterling's  general  aspect :  His  frank  cheerful  impetuosity.  No  good 
Portrait  of  him.  An  honourable  man  and  good  citizen  :  Clear  and  perfect 
fidelity  to  Truth  :  Like  a  true  son,  not  like  a  mutinous  rebel.  By  few  Eng- 
lishmen had  the  thing  called  Church  of  England  been  more  loyally  appealed 
to,  or  more  sorrowfully  left.  (p.  230.)  — By  nature  appointed  for  a  Poet, 
rather  than  a  Priest.  A  tragic  history,  yet  a  brave  and  noble  one.  Strange 
aberrations  appointed  him.  Many  a  man's  history  shown  in  this  image  of  a 
fellow  pilgrim's, — released  from  his  toils  before  the  hottest  of  the  day.  By 
what  means  is  a  noble  life  still  possible  for  me  here?  (234.) 


INDEX. 


AGK,  admonitions  of  our,  172.  See  Epoch. 
Art,  a  superabundance  of,  148  ;  a  windy 

gospel,  154. 
A  rtliur  Coniiigslty,  Sterling's  first  Novol, 

55,  62,  82. 
At/ieaamtii,    copyright   of  the,    changes 

hands,  38,  40,  55. 

Battle,  the,  appointed  for  us  all,  6  ;  Ster- 
ling's gallant  enthusiasm,  32,  34  ;  pain 
and  danger  shall  not  be  shirked,  53  ;  a. 
doomed  voyage,  79,  85  ;  the  noblest 
struggle,  with  the  Church,  92  ;  the  bat- 
tle's fury  rages  everywhere,  172  ;  each 
man  for  himself  must  wage  it,  195  ;  like 
a  true  son,  not  like  a  mutinous  rebel, 
232,  236. 

Belief,  theoretic  and  actual,  108. 

Kible,  the  most  earnest  of  books,  227. 

Black  dragoon,  a,  in  every  parish,  32  ; 
considerably  silvered  over,  56. 

Blackwood's  Magazine,  Sterling's  con- 
nexion with,  134,  139. 

Bordeaux,  Sterling  at,  118. 

Boyd,  Lieut.  Robert,  joins  with  Torrijos,  I 
60  ;  at  Gibraltar,  64,  65  ;  death,  77. 

Brick-and-mortar  Apostleship,  105. 

Buller,  Mrs.,  death  of,  42. 

Bute,  Isle  of,  its  climate  and  scenery,  7, 


Calvert,  Dr.,  meets  Sterling  at  Madeira, 
132  ;  a  touching  bond  of  union,  135  ; 
accompanies  him  to  Rome,  141,  144  ; 
Sterling  nurses  him  in  sickness,  148  ; 
weather-bound  at  Falmouth,  174  ;  wear- 
ing visibly  weaker,  186  ;  death,  194. 

Cambridge,  superiority  of,  31. 

Cant,  dead  and  putrid,  84. 

Carlyle  first  hears  definitely  of  Sterling, 
75;  pleasantly  impressed  by  Arthur 
Coningsby,  82  ;  sees  Sterling  s  Father, 
89  ;  first  interview  with  Sterling,  92  ;  lis- 
tens unprofited  to  friendly  admonitions, 
104  ;  high  topics,  108  ;  insists  upon  the 
good  of  evil,  115:  a  rainy  walk,  116  ; 
Sterling's  friendly  sympathy,  127  ;  a 
sad  farewell,  128  ;  a  hurried  escort, 


141  ;  fruitful  talk  in  straitened  circum- 
stances, 167  ;  the  first  human  recogni- 
tion, 168  ;  a  strange  effulgence,  214  ; 
the  saddest  of  dinners,  222  ;  sacred  pos- 
sessions, 230  ;  a  commission  higher  than 
the  world's,  236. 

Carlyle,  Mrs.,  and  Sterling's  Mother,  94  ; 
Sterling's  affectionate  remembrance, 
120;  a  humble  imitation,  131  ;  a  gentle 
message,  201  ;  love  in  death,  229. 

Carnival,  the,  156. 

Children,  Sterling's  letters  to,  151,  227. 

Church,  the  dead  English,  distilled  into 
life  again,  51  ;  Sterling's  fatal  attempt 
to  find  sanctuary  in  it,  82,  85  ;  com- 
mended for  its  very  indifferency,  94 ; 
found  wanting,  195,  233. 

Church-formulas,  Sterling's  battle  with, 
3  ;  no  living  relation  to  him,  45  ;  sin- 
gular old  rubrics,  46  ;  thrashing  of  the 
straw,  123. 

Classicality,  what  meant  by,  29. 

Clifton,  Sterling  at,  161,  182. 

Club,  The  Sterling,  139. 

Cobwebs,  a  world  overhung  with,  32,  So. 

C/xur-dc-Lion,  is  the  best  of  Sterling's 
Poems,  195,  204,  219,  220  ;  his  own  ac- 
count of  it,  224. 

Coleridge  on  Highgate  Hill,  a  Dodona- 
Oracle,  41,  46  ;  Sterling's  assiduous 
attendance,  48  ;  a  magical  ingredient 
in  the  wild  caldron  of  his  mind,  54, 
79,  82,  84,  91  ;  waning  influence,  114  ; 
a  lesson  for  us  all,  196. 

Conscious  and  unconscious  realities,  81, 
90. 

Cornish  heroism,  189. 

Cowbridge,  a  smart  little  town,  14. 

Cromwell,  Sterling's  fteling  about,  222, 
224. 

Doll's  shoes,  a  feat  accomplished,  166. 
Dunn,  the  Rev.  Mr.,  113. 

Edgeworth,  Frank,  account  of,  114. 
Education,  mainly  trusted  with  the  Clergy 

at  present,  116;  Sterling's  opinion  on, 

164. 


246 


INDEX. 


Election,  the,   a   mock-heroic   poem  by 

Sterling,  179;  description;  portrait  of 

Mogg  ;  a  pretty  picture,  192. 
English  Character,  manful  style  of,  31  ; 

stoical  pococurantism,  112  ;  wise  chiefly 

by  instinct,  209. 
Epoch,  a  bewildered,  33,  QI. 
Eternal  Melodies,  and  grinding  discords, 

79- 
Exeter,  Bishop  of,  resemblance  between 

the,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Tuam,  148. 
Exeter  Hall,  and  its  Puritan  mummies, 

224. 

Falmouth,  Sterling  at,  174,  183. 

Fame,  as  they  call  it,  4,  38. 

Family-likenesses  between  Sterling  and 
his  parents,  1 1 ;  contrasts  and  concord- 
ances, 89,  137,  209. 

Foxes,  the,  a  pleasant  Quaker  family, 
176,  180,  181,  183,  186 ;  modest  Anti- 
Hudson  testimonial,  190. 

French  rage  against  Britain,  203. 

Fretich  Revolution,  Carlyle's,  published, 
126. 

Glamorgan,  Vale  of,  14. 

Goethe's  last  birthday,  74  ;  Epigram,  115  ; 
Sterling's  gradual  recognition  of  his 
worth,  in,  135  ;  cannot  find  in  him 
what  he  would  expect  in  Jean  Paul, 
122 ;  looks  at  him  like  a  shying  horse 
at  a  post,  129. 

Greek  Dramatic  forms,  185. 

Hare,  Archdeacon,  and  his  Biography  of 
Sterling,  2  ;  his  testimony  to  Sterling's 
high  character,  28  ;  their  opportune 
meeting  at  Bonn,  83  ;  Sterling  becomes 
his  Curate,  84  ;  a  welcome  fellow-la- 
bourer, 88. 

Hell,  Sterling's  desire  for  earnest  well- 
doing, were  it  even  in,  94  ;  no  perdition 
so  perilous  as  a  faithless,  lying  spirit, 
92. 

Highgate  Hill,  a  view  from,  47. 

Hypocrisy,  the  old  true  paths  submerged 
in,  84  ;  the  one  thing  bad,  92,  116  ;  si- 
lence far  preferable,  154;  duty  of  ab- 
horrence, 156. 

Idleness  in  Rome,  150. 

Inspiration  of  God  the  only  real  intelli- 
gence, 34  ;  the  unforgivable  sin  to 
swerve  from,  46,  52. 

Intellect  and  Virtue,  one  great  summary 
of  gifts,  169. 

Kemble,  Fanny,  Sterling's  admiration 
for,  42. 

Literature  a  chaotic  haven,  38  ;  and  last 
resource,  107,  123,  127  ;  real  and  sham, 


Llanblethian,  a  pleasant  little  Welsh  vil- 
lage, 14,  15. 

Lockhart,  Sterling's  admiring  estimate 
of,  204. 

Madeira,  its  beautiful  climate  and  scen- 
ery, 128,  132. 

Maurice,  Rev.  F.  D. ,  a  Cambridge  com- 
panion of  Sterling's,  31  ;  joins  him  in 
the  Athenaeum  adventure,  38,  41  ;  di- 
vergence of  opinion,  but  kindly  trustful 
union  of  hearts,  113,  223  ;  marries  Ster- 
ling's sister-in-law,  125. 

Maurice's,  Mrs.,  affectionate  solicitude 
for  Sterling  and  his  orphan  family,  219, 
223,  230. 

Michael  Angelo,  house  of,  146. 

Might  and  Right,  their  intrinsic  identity, 
169. 

Mill  s,  John,  friendship  for  Sterling,  75, 
82  ;  introduces  him  to  Carlyle,  92  ;  has 
charge  of  the  London  and  Westminster 
Review,  139  ;  with  Sterling  in  Italy, 
160  ;  inserts  his  Article  on  Carlyle, 
1 68  ;  with  Sterling  at  Falmouth,  176  ; 
his  work  on  Logic,  204. 

Moffat,  the  African  Missionary,  205. 

Montaigne's  House,  120  ;  Sterling's  Es- 
say, 139. 

Moonshine,  Bottled,  and  illusory 
Churches,  80 ;  diseased  developments, 
84  ;  more  perilous  than  any  perdition, 
92. 

Naples,  Sterling  at,  200 ;  eminent  ignor- 
ance of  the  Neapolitans,  202. 

Negro  Slaves,  the,  unfit  for  freedom,  68  ; 
devotion  to  a  good  Master,  73. 

Newman,  Francis,  Sterling's  high  esteem 
for,  162. 

O'Connell  on  the  wings  of  blarney,  212. 
Old-clothes,  heaps  of,  3. 
Onyx  Ring,  the,  Sterling's  Tale  of,  in, 
133  ;  still  worth  reading,  134. 

Pantheism,  109. 

Peel  and  Wellington,  Edward  Sterling's 

admiration  of,  207,  211  ;  note  of  thanks 

from  Sir  Robert  Peel,  210. 
Peter's,  St.,  in  masquerade,  158. 
Poetry  or  Prose  ?  a  parting  of  the  ways 

for  Sterling,  171,  179;  Poetry,  190,  220, 

234/ 

Politics,  English,  restless  whirl  of,  147  ; 
a  social  mine  below,  159. 

Pompeii  and  its  Fresco  Paintings,  202. 

Pope,  the,  a  glance  at,  through  Sterling's 
eyes,  155  ;  a  lie  in  livery,  156  ;  candid 
confession  about  him,  164. 

Professions,  the  learned,  hateful  not  lov- 
able, 35. 

Puseyisms,  begotten  by  Coleridge  from 
his  own  fantasies,  54,  92. 


INDEX. 


247 


Radicalism,  Sterling's  early,  32,  44  ;  tot- 
tering for  him,  and  threatening  to 
crumble,  56  ;  fallen  to  wreck,  80  ;  the 
opposite  extreme,  106. 

Keece,  Mr.,  Sterling's  early  schoolmaster, 
19,  22. 

Religion  cannot  be  made-up  of  doubts, 
85,  92. 

Revolutionary  Horologe,  57. 

Rhadamanthus's  post  long  vacant,  214. 

Rome,  Sterling  at,  148,  154. 

Saint-Simonian  Portent,  the,  41,  121. 

Sartor  Resartus,  Sterling's  letter  on,  95. 

Scepticism,  so  rife  in  our  day,  5. 

Sexton's  Daiigliter,  Sterling's,  124  ;  still 
in  the  shadows  of  the  surplice,  127. 

Silence,  greatness  and  fruitfulness  of,  169. 

Simplon  Pass,  the,  143. 

Slavery  Question,  Sterling's  notions  on 
the,  93.  See  Negro  Slaves. 

Spanish  Refugees,  56,  58,  75. 

Stars  gone  out,  34,  85,  123. 

Sterling,  Anthony,  born,  12;  early  memo- 
ries,  13  ;  a  steady,  substantial  boy,  25  ; 
enters  a  military  life,  28  ;  letter  to,  42  ; 
at  home  on  a  visit,  124  ;  meets  his  Bro- 
ther in  Italy,  160  ;  quits  the  army,  221  ; 
at  his  Brother's  dying  bed,  230. 

Sterling,  John,  born  in  the  Isle  of  Bute, 
7  ;  early  life  in  Wales,  13  ;  at  Passy,  22  ; 
London,  23  ;  runs  away  from  home,  25  ; 
sent  to  Glasgow  University,  28  ;  life  at 
Cambridge,  28 ;  a  Secretaryship,  36  : 
the  A  ttieiuftttn,  38  ;  attendance  on  Cole- 
ridge, 48  ;  intimacy  with  the  Barton  fa- 
mily, 55,  59  ;  connexion  with  Torrijos, 
58  ;  engaged  to  Miss  Barton,  63  ;  Mar- 
riage, 65  ;  illness,  66  ;  at  the  Island  of 
St.  Vincent,  67  ;  news  of  the  Spanish 
Catastrophe,  75  ;  returns  to  London, 
Si  ;  meets  Mr.  Hare  at  Bonn,  83  ;  Cu- 
rate at  Herstmonceux,  87 ;  quits  the 
Church,  91  ;  life  in  London,  92  ;  at 
Bayswater,  105  ;  another  serious  illness, 
116;  at  Bordeaux,  118;  Madeira,  128; 
literary  efforts,  136  ;  journey  to  Italy, 
141  ;  at  Rome,  148  ;  at  Clifton,  161  ; 
Article  on  Carlyle,  168 ;  at  Falmouth, 
174  ;  Clifton  again,  177  ;  Torquay,  180; 
Falmouth,  183  ;  Naples,  197  ;  home 
again,  203  ;  a  dangerous  accident,  213  ; 
Mother  and  Wife  both  taken  from  him, 
217  ;  removes  to  Ventnor,  218  ;  his  last 
sickness  and  death,  226. 

Letters  to  his  Father,  164,  170, 

177,  187,  196,  203  ;  to  his  Mother, 
25,  68,  125,  142,  163,  166,  184,  196, 
199,  205,  214,  215  ;  to  both,  148,  157, 
174  ;  to  his  Brother,  42  ;  to  his  Son, 
151,  227;  to  T.  Carlyle,  95,  119,  129, 
163,  164,  184,  200,  223,  229  ;  to  Charles 
Barton,  62, 131,  180,  198  ;  to  Mr.  Hare, 
156,  194  ;  to  Mrs.  Charles  Fox,  180, 


181  ;  to  W. .  Coningham,  181,  182  ;  to 
Dr.  Carlyle,  182  ;  to  Dr.  Symonds,  184, 
196,  204,  217. 

Sterling,  John  :  his  Classical  attainments, 
29  ;  unusual  likeness  between  his  speech 
and  letters,  103  ;  pulpit  manner  of  read- 
ing, 127  ;  worth  as  a  Writer,  137,  151, 
227  ;  superior  excellence  in  prose,  172  ; 
the  Election,  a  Poem,  179;  undeniable 
success,  191  ;  Coeur-dc-Lion,  219  ;  liter- 
ary remains,  235. 

his  Character  need  not  be  judged 

in  any  Church-court,  2  ;  a  Guy-Faux 
likeness,  4  ;  lucky  to  have  had  such 
parents  as  his,  n  ;  nomadic  tendencies, 
23  ;  a  headlong  Boy  of  twelve,  25  ;  a 
voracious  reader  and  observer,  27  ; 
gifts,  generosities,  and  pieties,  28 ;  a 
young  ardent  soul,  32  ;  a  kingly  kind 
of  man,  33  ;  nomadic  desultory  ways, 
35  ;  able  to  argue  with  four  or  five  at 
once,  36  ;  a  brother  to  all  worthy  souls, 
40  ;  not  given  to  lie  down  and  indo- 
lently moan,  65  ;  rich  in  the  power  to 
be  miserable  or  otherwise,  78  ;  the  ta- 
lent of  waiting,  of  all  others,  the  one  he 
wanted  most,  84  ;  generous  ardour  for 
whatever  seemed  noble  and  true,  87  ; 
bright  ingenuity  and  audacity,  94  ; 
candour  and  transparency,  103  ;  cheery 
swift  decision,  104  ;  not  intrinsically  a 
devotional  mind,  109  ;  too  vehement, 
fatally  incapable  of  sitting  still,  136 ; 
a  certain  grimmer  shade  came  gradually 
over  him,  138  ;  beautiful  and  pathetic 
adjustment  to  his  hard  conditions,  162  ; 
a  strange  effulgence  through  the  ice  of 
earnest  pain  and  sorrow,  214,  222  ;  a 
central  inflexibility  and  noble  silent  re- 
solution, 220  ;  perfect  courage  and  vali- 
ant simplicity  of  heart,  226  ;  serene, 
victorious,  divinely  sad,  227  ;  spiritual 
portraiture,  232. 

his  Personal  aspect,  93,  in,  230; 

his  Life  an  expressive  emblem  of  his 
Time,  6,  91,  235. 

Sterling,  Mrs.,  her  beautiful  character 
and  early  troubles,  66  ;  a  perilous  situa- 
tion, 70  ;  her  weakly  constitution,  160, 
177  ;  illness,  216  ;  sudden  death,  217  ; 
an  affectionate  loyal-hearted  Wife,  218. 

Sterling's  Father,  early  career  of,  9  ;  his 
restless  striving,  20  ;  connexion  with  the 
Times  Newspaper,  20,  21  ;  a  private 
gentleman  of  some  figure,  89  ;  the  Magus 
of  the  Times,  94  ;  abundant  jolly  satire, 
126  ;  his  house  a  sunny  islet,  and  ever- 
open  port  for  Sterling,  206  ;  the  Times 
Newspaper  his  express  emblem,  208  ; 
England  listened  to  the  voice,  209  ; 
Note  of  thanks  from  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
210  ;  loyal  admiration  for  Peel  and  Wel- 
lington, and  ditto  contempt  for  O'Con- 
nell,  21 1 ;  pleasant  half-bantering  dia- 


248 


INDEX. 


lect  between  Father  and  Son,  213;  a 
fatal  eclipse,  213;  alone  in  the  world, 
217  ;  closing  days,  221. 

Sterling's  Mother,  delicate  pious  charac- 
ter of,  ii ;  affectionate  care  for  him, 
23  ;  troubled  days,  26 ;  friendship  for 
Madam  Torrijos,  58  ;  for  Mrs.  Carlyle, 
94 ;  a  pleasant  home,  213  ;  fatal  illness, 
213 ;  Sterling's  reverent  affection  for 
her,  214,  217  ;  news  of  her  death,  217. 

Strachey,  Mrs.  Edward,  162,  165. 

Strafford,  Sterling's  tragedy  of,  179,  205, 
220. 

Strauss,  165,  184,  195. 

Talk,  Coleridge's,  48. 

Theological  Metaphysics,  Sterling's  inter- 
est in,  in,  114;  decidedly  abating,  123. 

Times,  the,  Newspaper.  See  Sterling's 
Father. 

Tongue-fence,  Sterling's  skill  in,  36,  109. 

Torrijos,  General,  the  main-stay  of  his 
fellow  Exiles,  58  ;  they  leave  England, 
64  ;  difficulties  at  Gibraltar,  65  ;  a  cata- 
strophe, 75  ;  death,  77. 


Toryism  an  overgrown   Imposture,   44 ; 

the  Pope  a  respectable  old  Tory,  1^8  ; 

English  Toryism  not  so  bad  as  Irish, 

196. 
Tragedy,  Sterling's  high  notions  of,  185. 

Universities,  the  English,  30. 

Veracity  the  one  sanctity  of  life,  92  ;  small 
still  voices,  123  ;  clear  and  perfect  fide- 
lity to  Truth,  232. 

J  'etits,  Letters  of,  20. 

Vincent,  St.,  Island  of,  Sterling's  resi- 
dence in  the,  67. 

Volto  Santo,  the,  chief  of  Relics,  147. 

Watch  and  Canary  Bird,  Mrs.  Carlyle's, 
131. 

Watt,  James,  173. 

Welsh  Villages,  15. 

West-Indian  Tornado,  68. 

Wilson's,  Professor,  generous  encourage- 
ment of  Sterling,  134. 

Wordsworth,  127. 


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